Yahoo Lifestyle At ESPN, everything revolves around Stephen A. Smith and Pat McAfee
BRISTOL, Conn. - ESPN belongs to Stephen A. Smith and Pat McAfee. As if there was much doubt.
The sports giant Wednesday rolled out a slew of executives and talent in front of several dozen reporters at its sprawling campus, and most were happy to do their part to paint a picture of a rosy future for history’s most successful cable channel even as it continues to navigate the collapse of the cable bundle.
There was talk of ESPN’s growing TikTok following, the announcement of a new 12-year U.S. Open tennis deal, and plenty of discussion of the synergy and reach that Walt Disney - ESPN’s parent company - can offer sports.
But by Wednesday evening, ESPN’s two biggest stars had dominated the proceedings with a show of bravado, score-settling and victory-dancing during an hour-long panel discussion followed by a question-and-answer session with the assembled media.
“Who am I going against and whoever that is ... my objective is annihilation," Smith said at one point, in reference to the 10 a.m. hour of TV. “Whoever goes up against me, I’m taking that.”
McAfee repeatedly critiqued the reporters sitting in front of him.
“Whenever people in here have tried to get me fired for taking clips out of context or quotes out of context, and misrepresenting everything that I’ve said, and the human that I am,” he said, “It’s like we know that we’re good, so you can try to fire us, you can try to kill us, you can do whatever you need to do, but success is the fact that we have the following, and they’re going to ride with us.”
Smith and McAfee were onstage alongside several of the network’s other stars: SportsCenter hosts Scott Van Pelt and Elle Duncan and “Get Up” host Mike Greenberg. Van Pelt has been a fixture at the network for more than a decade. Greenberg has been everywhere on radio and TV during his career. And Duncan’s profile is rising.
Those three offered mostly benign insights into their careers. McAfee and Smith traded soliloquies.
Smith zinged Fox Sports 1: “How can I say this respectfully?” he replied when asked about competing with Skip Bayless, his former debate partner who left for Fox and whose show recently ended. “We’ve dominated … for 12 years now and counting. So this notion that suddenly we’ve won and the competition has finally been defeated, and wow, it was such a long, arduous battle. It’s just not true.”
Smith also defended industry layoffs.
“You see folks having trouble in some way, shape, form or fashion, even losing their jobs or whatever,” he said. “You got folks writing about how, ‘Hey, you know what? It’s so sad, it’s such a wrong thing to do.’ Why are they gone? Folks are not gone a lot of times because they lack talent … but they’re looking at numbers. And whoever’s not winning the numbers game, they’re going to make changes.”
McAfee suggested he could sue a popular blog, Awful Announcing, that covers sports media. “Slander, libel, character assassination, stolen clips, all that s---,” he said. “Like, if I wanted to ever deal with suits, which I don’t ... that could be a thing, like, I could make that a thing.”
And he was more than happy to remind the room that he doesn’t even need ESPN.
“We haven’t been kicked off ESPN yet,” McAfee said. “I view that as a success now. Granted, we would still just continue doing business on YouTube and on our TikTok and everything like that, and we’re very lucky to be on ESPN.”
Duncan walked off the stage and said to an ESPN communications staffer: “That was something.”
“That was something,” the staffer replied.
Despite the combativeness, both McAfee and Smith have outlasted their foes in the industry - real or imagined. They have more influence, reach and money than ever. McAfee, a former NFL punter, has a reported five-year, $85 million contract with ESPN to license his show. Smith is likely on the verge of signing a contract that will pay him more than that.
To be sure, nothing Smith nor McAfee said Wednesday was new. McAfee has often complained about media coverage. Smith has told reporters countless times over the past year how successful he is and how much money he deserves.
But there was something novel in doing so on the Bristol campus at an event that, prior to their session, had the vibes of a corporate retreat. People inside ESPN have wondered about the balance of power between ESPN and its biggest names during an era in which McAfee has attacked a network executive on the air and Smith launched his own podcast outside the ESPN umbrella, pontificating on everything from sports to politics to his own sex life. Wednesday’s theatrics will do little to quiet any of those questions.
“It’s personality,” one ESPN executive told The Post after the session. “That’s what we want.”
During an afternoon panel that featured former Alabama coach Nick Saban and the recently retired Super Bowl champion Jason Kelce - both of whom are now ESPN talents - McAfee casually entered the back of the conference room, dressed in a black T-shirt, black jeans and snakeskin boots.
In a room with two football legends, his presence rippled through the room.
“Whooaaaa,” Kelce shouted.
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