Stephen A. Smith is one of the biggest personalities in sports, and like the media game he thrives in, he’s learned how to adapt and thrive in an ever-changing landscape.
He’s a media maestro, conducting shows like First Take and The Stephen A. Smith Show in ways that manifest his mastery of the media game and support his hefty paycheck.
And because of that, everyone either loves, loathes, admires, or mutes him.
Last week, media host Jason Page fired off a rant on Twitter/X about Smith no longer being a journalist.
“Stephen A. Smith isn’t a journalist,” wrote Page. “Stephen A. Smith is sports version of a Rachel Maddow or Sean Hannity. He’s a talk-show host. While Stephen A. could claim he is a journalist all he wants and whenever it suits him, those journalist days are behind him. They slipped into the rear-view mirror the moment he decided to host a program called First Take.”
Page had almost 2,000 replies to his post. Many agreed with his take, calling the ESPN star “insufferable” and other descriptions critical of his antics and on-air takes. Others took aim at Page for targeting Smith, even calling him out for putting his journalist days behind him as well.
Page’s rant is nothing new, for people critique Smith daily. And like Bishop from the X-Men, he absorbs all of the hits, positive and negative, and unleashes them back to audiences through rants on the airwaves.
In Smith’s world, the more critiques and conversations about him the better because it keeps his name in people’s heads and mouths.
And he knows how to play the game.
When Jason Whitlock went at him about his book, Smith took to X/Twitter and let everyone know that his response was coming later that evening on the Stephen A. Smith show.
And respond he did, ethering Whitlock in a way for all to enjoy.
But the ability to use the media properly didn’t come naturally. Instead, he had to pay his dues, grow, fail, and be fired to learn that the business is centered around one determining factor.
Ratings.
Coming up as a newspaper journalist, Smith eventually made his way to ESPN primarily on radio. There he learned how to use his gift of gab to drive tune in. Sports radio, especially the more successful programs, demands personality, knowledge and a powerful voice. Smith had the foundation for all three.
But TV differs from radio, and he learned that the hard way by thinking his success could seamlessly transfer to on camera. After ESPN fired him in 2009, he learned that you have to work at it.
“All I had was radio, which was expendable, and SportsCenter appearances,” he said during an interview with the Earn Your Leisure podcast. “You didn’t have a definitive place where you knew to catch me. So what did they do under the old regime? They sign me to a contract in 2008. They give me $600,000 less than what I had turned down and less than what their initial offer was. Then, on top of it all, they kept me off of the air. All of a sudden, y’all didn’t see me. You didn’t hear me.”
That off-the-air silence lasted for almost a year.
When ESPN gave him a second chance, he learned how ratings drive ROI, so he honed in on the things that drove ratings.
And that’s when Stephen A. Smith the journalist took a backseat to Stephen A. the persona.
Fast forward over a decade later and Smith, who learned what audiences wanted and didn’t want and did them both to the fullest, is ESPN’s biggest name and voice.
“I’m editorializing, I’m opining, I’m informing, I’m entertaining. I’m doing all of these different things,” said Smith in an interview with Valuetainment.
He torments Cowboys fans, unleashes on athletes (professionally) and puts topics into the public sphere to see what sticks and what doesn’t.
During the fall, there always seems to be a rather long segment on the Cowboys during First Take. Why? Because viewers want to see what he’ll say and how he’ll act. Even if it’s to ridicule him and trash his takes, they tune in.
Now that he’s mastered sports media, Smith has turned his attention to pop culture and politics. Why? Because he understands that to get where he wants to be, he has to continue to expand his TV audience.
So he hosted Jimmy Kimmel Live! and has been appearing on conservative talk show host Sean Hannity’s show on Fox News. He’s also taken First Take on the road to his alma mater, Winston Salem State University, and to Colorado to hang with Coach Prime. ESPN also aired his latest project, Up For Debate: The Evolution of Sports Media, a three-part docuseries on the industry.
But there have been stumbles.
In 2017, fans destroyed him for his boxing analyst debut at the Manny Pacquiao vs. Joe Horn fight. A year later, he was roasted for his commentary about a Thursday Night Football game.
Most recently, Smith came under fire for saying that Black people find Trump relatable and quoting “unnamed sources” while discussing Celtics star, Jaylen Brown.
Afterward, Smith was taken to task by the NAACP and Brown himself, after which he had to readdress his comments. That meant more eyeballs (ratings points) were locked on his rebuttals.
Smith came up when the news industry was just about reporting the facts. But audiences gradually began craving something different. That’s why ESPN made SportsCenter more entertaining and ended traditional journalism-based shows like Sports Reporters.
And while he didn’t invent the current iteration of sports media, he definitely had a hand in shaping it for TV.
While it took a bad time in his life to understand the business, Smith’s trajectory since that enlightenment has transformed him into one of, if not the biggest, personality in sports media.
And while some feel that he’s no longer a journalist, he vehemently disagrees.
“People are inclined to look at my bombacity or my demonstrative tendencies from time to time when I’m on the air. Look at my resume: It’s stoked in journalism,” he told QG.
Love him or hate him, Stephen A. Smith is who he is.
But if you don’t like him or what he’s doing or saying, you can always change the channel.
