Best of the Bus: Stephen A Smith On Competing With Pat McAfee + Staying On Top At ESPN

00:00:00
Speaker 1: Tell you want to kick it off.

00:00:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another episode of Busting with the Boys. Very special guest today. The legend if you've been turned on ESPN every probably in your entire life, you've seen this man sitting in front of you giving takes, going at people, having absolute receipts for everything. Mister Stephen Asmith.

00:00:16
Speaker 3: What's going on, fellas? How y'all toing? How y'all doing? Man good to be here, Yeah.

00:00:21
Speaker 2: Living the dream and we're happy you came on. We actually just saw you an hour ago doing a little hit on ESPN. I will tell you this, it is a very unique thing doing real TV because it's so fast paced.

00:00:31
Speaker 3: It is it is. It's fast paced, and in our case is live. So you mess up, you mess up, you know what I mean? And ain't like somebody's going to say, we don't even have a seven second delay, so you know, an any kind of hiccup that takes place, you could say the wrong word, the wrong thing or whatever, you can gind yourself in trouble. So that's the pressure that comes along with doing live television.

00:00:50
Speaker 4: But I like it, so it is what it is.

00:00:52
Speaker 5: How do you manage to keep your level of enthusiasm work ethic with every thing you're doing. You're also now in the podcast space, which is a massive one, by the way, and shout out, shout out your boy Bailey's here.

00:01:06
Speaker 1: I followed him a while. I know he kind of.

00:01:07
Speaker 5: Does a lot of your stuff, but he does. How do you manage all of that stuff?

00:01:11
Speaker 3: Well, y'all do what you love. That's number one. I don't have a job. I have a career. I've often said when I give speeches and lectures, I say a job is doing what you have to do to sustain or elevate your quality of life. A career is doing what you want to do, and it just so happens to do those things. But I also think the pressure of covering sports contributes to that kind of mentality. You know, you guys played in the NFL. You got guys I'm covering to play in the NBA, Major League Baseball, professional boxes, UFC, fighters, et cetera, et cetera. These are the best in the world. And when you consider the fact that you not only didn't do what they did on.

00:01:45
Speaker 4: That level, but it was because you couldn't.

00:01:48
Speaker 3: Yet you get to sit in judgment of how they performed.

00:01:53
Speaker 4: How receptive folks should be to how.

00:01:55
Speaker 3: They perform, how receptive people should be to your commentary about it.

00:02:01
Speaker 4: Then you owe it to everybody.

00:02:02
Speaker 3: To make sure that you put forth a full fledged effort with passion and enthusiasm to let everybody know not only are you not playing around, but you care that much. And so that's the very least that you can do. And that's what I try to bring to the table.

00:02:15
Speaker 2: When you're fighting through that process of knowing that these guys are playing at the highest level, doing their thing at the highest level, and you are saying there in judgment, how was the process for you as far as like feeling comfortable with putting out a judgment knowing you essentially haven't done what they did.

00:02:28
Speaker 3: You know, it was easy for me in this regard. I remember when I started out in the business and I had a clerical position at the Winston Salem Journal newspaper in Winsters Salem, North Carolina, because I went to Winston Salem State University, which is in historically black college and university. And I went there and the sports editor of my first week on a job sent me to Wake Forest University, right down the road. Wake Forest was the number three ranked team in the nation in soccer. The only soccer match I had ever watched was Pele in the nineteen eighty Olympics for the you you know of I guess right, And so what happened is that I knew nothing about soccer, and I went to the coach who's now.

00:03:13
Speaker 4: Deceased, God rest his soul.

00:03:15
Speaker 3: His name was walk Chisowich, and I walked up to him and I say, I know absolutely nothing about soccer. I've never covered it on anything, sir, but the boss sent me over here to do a feature on you guys, and I don't know what I'm doing, but I really want to be a sports writer.

00:03:32
Speaker 4: Could you help me?

00:03:34
Speaker 3: And he summoned the entire team over and he said, for the next three days, because my piece was doing a week.

00:03:41
Speaker 4: He said, for the.

00:03:42
Speaker 3: Next three days, you guys are to give complete unadulterated access to Stephen. To Stephen, any question he asked you answer and he said you Steven. Meanwhile, every single practice of every day this week, you will be standing right next to me. And he talked me the game of soccer. And then when I finished the piece, which ultimately had the sports that it to call me into this office the next day and say, congratulations, you're the new beat right of a wait for a soccer. When I went to the coach after that and let him know, he said to me, what do you think you've learned? What do you think you should have learned? I said, listen and learn. He said, you didn't play soccer, but you learn from those who do. And as long as you do that, then you're in a position to critique any of us because the knowledge that you're getting is not of your own, it's one that was provided to you. And as long as you make sure you articulate that, you will be respected because they know the lens that you're looking through is not that of your own, it's of ours. And I carried that with me for the rest of my career.

00:04:52
Speaker 5: How was it when you started to get those close personal relationships with athletes you're obviously covering and now you are. Yeah, I mean you're obviously ser for starting out and everybody knows you. But as you're growing and then getting those closer relationships with guys and then having to go on TV and talk about, you know, stuff that as an athlete you know, is like personal to you? How did you start to balance that?

00:05:12
Speaker 3: As The parts about your performance never phaze me because you perform in a public platform, so the games themselves speak for themselves.

00:05:22
Speaker 4: You shoot two for twenty, it's on you.

00:05:23
Speaker 1: You throw three.

00:05:24
Speaker 3: Interceptions, that's on you. You fumbled three times or whatever. You get burned and you're a cornerback and somebody catches to over two hundred yards on you. Okay, that's on you. I mean, there's nothing I can do for you. And that is what it is. And I don't give a damn about how you feel because that was in a public setting and you put yourself on front Street, and that's what you have.

00:05:40
Speaker 4: To deal with.

00:05:41
Speaker 3: It's the behind the scene stuff subject to interpretation and perspective, or the personal stuff that I'm very, very guarded about because what happens is is that if I have a relationship with you, the assumption is that there's a trust. How do you become friends with people you do? You become friends with people you have no trust for, you don't believe in at all. You think every word out of their mouth is a damn line. No, that's not what you do. Usually you cultivate these relationships, and there's an affinity for one another and a level of trust that's built. So when somebody comes with a different perspective than the person you have a relationship with and it's an opposition to what they're saying to you, it can get tricky, and at that particular moment in time, you have to remind that friend, that person who's become a friend that you've cultivated a.

00:06:26
Speaker 4: Close relationship with.

00:06:27
Speaker 3: Look, I've got an obligation to be fair even if I know or I believe you and I think they may not be telling the truth. They're saying this for the record now off the record. I ain't gonna do that to you. But if they say to you on the record, you know what, he ain't shit, he's a liar. This is what he did, and blah blah blah. It's not like I can make up a quote.

00:06:48
Speaker 4: I gotta quote him. That's what he said. I gotta give it to them, okay, and give you an opportunity to respond.

00:06:54
Speaker 3: So it can get challenging in that regard, but that really calls for you to remind somebody of your professionalism, your ethics, the responsibility that comes along with the job title that you have, and it also serves as a reminder to that person that trusts you, why did you trust me to begin with? Because I exercised those same principles and cultivating the relationship I did with you, I can't go against it just because you're a man.

00:07:19
Speaker 4: I can't do that.

00:07:20
Speaker 3: And I've had those situations of my career before, confronted by those kind of things, whether it be Alan Ivsen, Kobe Bryant, Shaquille or Neil Michael Jordan himself.

00:07:28
Speaker 4: The list goes on and on.

00:07:29
Speaker 3: You certainly have had those things where people have given their different perspectives aside for that would be different from something that they said to me or whatever.

00:07:37
Speaker 4: And that's the challenge that you have to deal with.

00:07:38
Speaker 3: But when you're known as being straight up and up and up, what you learn to find from professional athletes that they appreciate most is.

00:07:45
Speaker 4: Not being blindsided.

00:07:47
Speaker 3: They see you coming, you know, they ain't open the paper or turn on the TV the next day and utterly shocked by what you're doing. And I think the greatest example of that was Isaiah Thomas when he was the head coach of the New York Nicks. They looked horrible, and there was a game in which they lost by forty five to Boston and Boston, and it was the most emotional that I had ever been in my career because I actually called him up and I almost started crying because he's the person that granted me my first ever interview as a reporter, and I had to call him to let him know tomorrow, I'm calling for you to be fired.

00:08:25
Speaker 1: Oh damn, because it was that bad.

00:08:27
Speaker 3: It was that bad, and I knew that he had a lot going on on a personal level. His mom was dying, and you know, he wasn't all there with the New York Knicks at that particular, so much stuff that was going on in his personal life that he had to deal with that it really didn't give the ideal example of what he was capable of doing as a coach. But the situation had regressed to such a point nobody worth their salt could support him staying on board. And I had to call him to let him know, this is what I'm doing tomorrow. And he said to me, do what you gotta do. Bro, I understand.

00:09:05
Speaker 2: And is that a common thing for you when do you have a relationship with somebody and that it goes downhill in a certain way where you give them a call and you let them know. This is how I'm about to go about business.

00:09:13
Speaker 3: I'm the kind of person even if I don't have a relationship with you, if I know you and I know I can get in touch. If I know you well enough that I can get in touch with you and I have something to say about you, I'm.

00:09:21
Speaker 4: Gonna call you.

00:09:22
Speaker 3: I'm that guy. I'm not that guy that's on TV. But never like when you don't see me in the locker room and stuff anymore. Blame ESPN. You got me doing every damn show. So you know what I'm saying.

00:09:31
Speaker 4: I'm on a half hours.

00:09:32
Speaker 3: You know, I gotta travel to this city that city. I can only do but so much. But everybody that knows me knows I've always had that reputation. I will show up to the games. I will show up to the locker rooms. There are times when people would see me lurking on a basketball court and they'd be like, who does he think he is? Like he's walking around the court before the games when guy's on the layup line. They didn't realize the reason I did that is because I knew I had a national television platform, and I knew that I didn't have to be that beat right with a bunch of reporters surrounding your locker after a game or something like that, but you might want to holler at me. So I wanted to be in their vicinity, so if they wanted to speak to me, they can either come over and speak to me, or come over and say, look, call me later, or plan on meet me at this spot later or whatever so we can talk. It was my way of giving them that kind of access to me in case they wanted to reach me.

00:10:22
Speaker 5: In those in those like UH, in those situations like when you're closer guys have there has there been a relationship of yours that has been burned because of uh?

00:10:31
Speaker 3: Alan Joverson and I didn't talk for eight months. And this is when I was the beat writer. Like for those that don't understand, when you're the beat writer, wherever the team goes, you go every single day, every single practice.

00:10:43
Speaker 4: You gotta cover the team.

00:10:45
Speaker 3: I was covering the Philadelphia seventy six ers and Alan Iverson and I went eight months without talking and the only time we talked, well, a couple of times where he was like fuck you and I like fuck you too, Like literally, it was like that you said it back to him, right, get right?

00:11:01
Speaker 4: I did, you know? Because that's how I felt at the time, because I felt he was wrong, you know.

00:11:04
Speaker 3: But ultimately a friend of his that ultimately was killed the years later, believe it or not, literally got us together. And how do we get together? He had me meet him at the club at two o'clock in the morning. And I met him at the night club and a looking at me like I was crazy because I showed up by myself. I said, I'm here. I said, I'm here by myself. I said, cause I can be. But more importantly, I'm right. I did not do anything wrong, you did, you know? And we had a discussion and we were fine.

00:11:34
Speaker 1: What was he claiming that you did wrong?

00:11:36
Speaker 4: Well?

00:11:36
Speaker 3: He was writing some articles, some article that I had written. He felt that I should not have written it because I didn't have all the facts that I didn't get his side, And I was like, you mean after trying to reach you for three days, you mean, after trying to talk to you, You mean coming to Fridays, coming to the club, you know, hollering at your friends and all that I'm like you knew I was looking for you, said, your inaccessibility doesn't get to determine my productivity. I'm going to do my job. I reached out, I tried to find you. You weren't available. If you were available, I would have told you everything. You would have given me your perspective, and it might have altered my content. You weren't available, and you thought being inaccessible was going to prevent me from doing my job.

00:12:22
Speaker 4: Well it didn't.

00:12:24
Speaker 3: Lesson learned. Make sure when I'm trying to reach you, I reach you because I'm not.

00:12:29
Speaker 4: How can I put this fellas? I mean, I got a good life. Now.

00:12:35
Speaker 3: You know, you make a little paper, and you know life is cool. You know it's a right.

00:12:40
Speaker 4: You know.

00:12:41
Speaker 3: But I was never one of those nerdives dudes that needed my career to have a life. I always had a life, excuse my language. I always have shit to do, okay, for my own individual pleasures, okay. And I got better things to do with my time to chase your ass around for a story. So if I'm looking for you, and I'm looking for you, and I'm looking for you at some point in time, you better hope I'll find you if you want to have some influence over the kind of things that I'm going to say, and if you.

00:13:15
Speaker 4: Avoid me for too long, that's at your own peril.

00:13:20
Speaker 3: Now it's changed now because now I'm on national television and so and we live in the age of streaming in the digital stratosphere.

00:13:27
Speaker 4: So you know, if you're in the morning, then.

00:13:29
Speaker 3: You're getting two hundred and fifty three hundred thousand viewers.

00:13:33
Speaker 4: That's considered good. Well, I'm doubling up on that.

00:13:35
Speaker 3: We've been number one for twelve years with a flagship show for the network, the worldwide leader. We're number one every day and so I don't have to worry about people watching us now. And then, on top of it all, in the digital stratosphere, me myself and I by myself generate over two billion views annually. You're going to see me, You're going to hear me. Do you want to have some influence over what I say or not? If you talk to me, I have no problem. I have an obligation ethically to listen to what you have to say and to make sure, even if I disagree with you, that the context that you are providing is accurately display. If you don't talk to me, that's your damn problem. Owe you nothing. I owe you, absolutely positively nothing. All I have to say is whatever I want to say. I tried to reach him for comment, he was unavailable.

00:14:32
Speaker 5: Simple We interrupt this episode to bring you Zip Recruiter. Our friends at zip recruiter conducted a recent survey that found that the top hiring challenge employers that the top hiring challenge employers face for twenty twenty four is a lack of qualified candidates, and right now you can try it for free at ZipRecruiter dot com slash busting. If you're an employer and need to hire, here's the good news. Zip recruiter has smart tools and features that help you find more qualified candidates fast. You can use ziprecruiters Invite to Apply feature to send top candidates a personalized invite to encourage them to respond to your job post. Let ZipRecruiter help you conquer the biggest hiring challenge, which is finding qualified candidates. See why four out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day. Just go to this exclusive web address right now to try ZipRecruiter for free ZipRecruiter dot com, slash bust and that's BUSSI n on ZipRecruiter dot com, ZipRecruiter the smartest way to hire.

00:15:34
Speaker 2: Back to the episode, when you're established yourself doing all this, how did you establish relationships with these athletes and also stay as unbiased as possible and become a straight shooter. When did you start to realize, Okay, I'm finally getting the reputation of who I actually am, and I feel I can be more free to be myself.

00:15:52
Speaker 3: Well from day one, I always let them know, don't look for any pity from me when it comes to your game, because everyone's watching. If I'm sitting there and I'm talking to y'all right now and we're having a private conversation, that's between us, and I can interpret it and I can we can discuss it, and I can shut up about it, go on my merry way, and it's between us. But with these cameras rolling with the world watch and I can't help you. What you say is what you say, What you own is what you own, And it's the same principle when you're watching these guys perform. And so the first order of business is for me to let them know that I'm going to be incredibly objective in calling out.

00:16:34
Speaker 4: What I see on the basketball court.

00:16:38
Speaker 3: But there are other things that I do, and this is where the relationship really elevated. I'm from the streets of New York City. No, I didn't smoke weed, but I know about getting high because I was surrounded by it all my life. I was surrounded by drugs all my life. I was surrounded by violence all my life. I was surrounded by folks party and all my life all of this other stuff. So all of the things devices, the temptation and everything like that. I'm a street wise brother. I kind of know. So if you show up to a game, I don't need a test to know if you hide. I'm looking right at you. I know if you hie, I know if you drunk. And then when you dig the way that I dig, because remember, I'm a beat right at the time. So you get to know everybody, And this is what people don't realize about few people that are beat writers.

00:17:25
Speaker 4: With a beat writer's.

00:17:26
Speaker 3: Nature, you don't only just know the athletes, the coaches, the player personnel, directors of scouts.

00:17:31
Speaker 4: They value.

00:17:31
Speaker 3: You know their families, You know their friends, you know their hanger ons, you know their associates, you know all of that stuff. So just imagine that you're covering sports and you're dealing with twenty year olds and late twenties and early thirties, and imagine the stuff that you're making, all of this money and the stuff that you might find yourself getting into because you know, you live in a life that most people don't get to live.

00:17:54
Speaker 4: Think about the trouble that brings. You think I didn't know. You think I didn't know that.

00:17:59
Speaker 3: You got traded because you were fucking the same girl as the coach, and the coach wanted you gone. You think I didn't know that the coach couldn't stand you because you tried to came on. You tried to come on to his wife, and his wife was interested. Do you think that I don't know that you really really can't stand this dude, because guess what, you wouldn't trade with this team because that former executive used to screw around with your wife and you didn't want anybody to know.

00:18:24
Speaker 1: That's why.

00:18:25
Speaker 4: When you remember, if you recall when we were doing the.

00:18:28
Speaker 3: Whole Boston Celtics thing where emil U Doka got pushed out because of a consensual relationship with somebody.

00:18:35
Speaker 4: You saw me going.

00:18:36
Speaker 3: Ballistic because I was like, oh, that's the first time that happened. I've been in this business for thirty years. Ain't a year that went by that I don't know about people screwing around in the office. It's always happening, like always, But this guy is the one y'all.

00:18:52
Speaker 4: Gonna bust Now.

00:18:54
Speaker 3: That pissed me off because I'm like, there's a code and what I didn't want to say, but I will say any damn way because I'm still getting pissed off about it just thinking about it. It was almost like it's like, wait a minute here, you know, did I bring up the black element? Sure, because there's a whole bunch of white dudes the last time I checked, y'all like sex too. You don't saying nobody's telling you on y'all have it, nobody's tying that to damn right, Ain't nothing wrong with it.

00:19:18
Speaker 4: So the point is, So the point is I get it. I get it. But what really ticked me off as well as that.

00:19:26
Speaker 3: There's certain codes like if you without getting into details because I don't want to get sued you kind of know that the person that he was with had connections to somebody else within new organization?

00:19:43
Speaker 4: Can I say that?

00:19:44
Speaker 3: So I'm going like this now, is that not the epitome of weakness?

00:19:49
Speaker 4: As men? Your woman?

00:19:52
Speaker 3: There's nothing around with somebody allegedly right, and you victimized in him? Well, he wanted to relationship with you, she was, but he victimized.

00:20:06
Speaker 4: But you're still probably with that person.

00:20:10
Speaker 3: Really now, I'm saying that as men, we would call a dude out for that. We'd be like, yo, b it's pretty damn weak. I mean, if you couldn't handle your business, you couldn't handle your business. But as wrong as he might have been, unless he was your friend or brother, whatever, he ain't owe.

00:20:26
Speaker 4: It to you. You understand saying she did. But they called him out.

00:20:33
Speaker 3: And I didn't want to go nuclear at that moment and say that, but that's what I was thinking, like, you know, you got to be pretty damn weak to be instigating this kind of shrapnel against that guy because you didn't handle your business.

00:20:48
Speaker 4: You know, I'm not fault.

00:20:49
Speaker 3: I'm not saying she wasn't wrong and he wasn't wrong or whatever, but there was another element to it that came with it that you saw there was a level of victim of then dictimness and hostility aimed solely at him who was not married and he wasn't involved with you, So why is he the one suffering more than anybody else? That's where I was coming from, And those kind of perspectives you get from seeing a lot and being around a lot and covering sports and seeing a whole bunch of things that go on. That was the stuff that that noise away at me because I look for consistency. I want fairness. It doesn't matter whether it's right wrong, whatever, I understand it. We could debate that, we can debate it or whatever, but consistency needs to be the order of the day when we're doing this. And that's what I try to bring.

00:21:41
Speaker 4: When you talk about you brought the code.

00:21:43
Speaker 2: And obviously it's easy sitting as Steven A Smith right now to go, but when you're a beat writer just trying to scratch and claw for that interview and you know things are going on and you could it'd be very easy for you to get way more clicks or way more whatever by saying, hey, so and so is cheating with so and so or whatever philandering was going on in this facility?

00:22:00
Speaker 4: How did you figure out the code?

00:22:01
Speaker 2: Like? How quickly do you learn that this code exists?

00:22:04
Speaker 3: Well, for me, it's a personal decision. My personal morals and ethics are different than other people. Fellas, there certain lines I'm just not crossing. I don't know y'all from a cannapign I'm just meet y'all, happy to get to know y'all.

00:22:20
Speaker 4: Show all the time. I've watched a couple of times. Y'all do a great job.

00:22:24
Speaker 3: Man, I could see you doing something that I might deem to be unethical as it pertains to your personal relationship with somebody.

00:22:30
Speaker 4: Man, ain't none of my damn business.

00:22:33
Speaker 3: I might not like it, I might hold it in, but I'm not diming you out. I'm just not doing it. It's none of my business. Now you're on a football field, you play like garbage. That's different. You know what I'm saying. I'm gonna say that, and by the way, and by the way, and by the way and by the way. If you do that, because we've seen people. I've seen people show up the games and you look sluggish. The audience didn't know you was screwing somebody two hours ago.

00:23:07
Speaker 4: But I did because I knew her. You see what I'm saying.

00:23:11
Speaker 3: So I'm not gonna tell on you, but I'm gonna go like this. I don't know what was wrong with him. He seemed a bit slow, you know, the legs did seem to be there. You know, my way of letting him know, Man, I know what you did. It's a matter with you. You couldn't wait till after the game, you know. That's how I've done or a guy that you know what, you're on a source a little bit. You' drinking a little bit too much alcohol. You know he's supposed to be doing that. You're supposed to do that the night before, not an hour, but not the hour before.

00:23:38
Speaker 4: The game, you know.

00:23:40
Speaker 3: And I'm like, I'm looking at you like, you know, you didn't seem like yourself.

00:23:43
Speaker 4: You seemed a little bit off kilter.

00:23:45
Speaker 3: And you know they raised the eyebrow because they know what I'm alluding to the audience, does it? You see what I'm saying. But I'll do stuff that's to let him know. Yeah, I could, but I'm not. But don't think I don't know. Come on, man, do your job. Do your job and then afterward live your life. And so you know, I've been doing stuff like that, you know, throughout my career. The difference between me now and then you got some of these athletes can't stand my ass, hate my ass, whatever case may, because they see me on TV.

00:24:12
Speaker 4: They don't have a relationship with me.

00:24:14
Speaker 3: For the reason why is because I'm stuck in studio and I can't get to the games the way that I used to as many gigs. I used to go to like two hundred, like one hundred and twenty hundred and twenty five games a year. Now I have to cut that in half because of my schedule. But the reason why they could feel that way now compared to the way they were before is because before this was me, I'd roll right up into the locker room.

00:24:33
Speaker 4: You seem like you got a problem. What's up?

00:24:36
Speaker 3: You can't possibly have a problem, How could you possibly have a problem?

00:24:40
Speaker 4: You know, what the hell you did? You know?

00:24:43
Speaker 3: And I would roll up on them like that. I remember years ago, mad love and respect for John Wall. But John Wall I was doing first take. John Wall walked up and he was like, you know, I just wish cats like you know, Stephen nay, you know, you know, say something on TV. Be man enough to you know, come to the locker room knowing good and damn well. I couldn't get to Washington that day. Man brother said that stuff. Man, I took off my microphone a good commercial break.

00:25:10
Speaker 4: I flew to DC. I was in front of his locker that.

00:25:12
Speaker 3: Night, like what like, I'm scared to do my job. It's not not talking about no fighting or anything. You're acting like I'm scared to do my job. This is my job. I am not scared to do my job ever. Ever, this is my job. Personal stuff is beyond the scope of the job. That's all that's that's wrong. You know, somebody disrespecting your family member, your girls are no. No, you want you want to bust ass, can't have that because you violating codes.

00:25:40
Speaker 4: But me just doing my job.

00:25:42
Speaker 1: If you can't play, you can't play.

00:25:44
Speaker 4: You play like garbage. You play like garbage. You messing up. You're messing up me scared to do that.

00:25:49
Speaker 3: Anybody that implies that they're gonna see me in front of that locker room, they're gonna see me in front of that I'd walk in the middle of the Dallas cowboyd locker room after a game. If they said something like that about me, you got to be crazy, because that's the job and I'm never going.

00:26:04
Speaker 4: To be scared to do my job.

00:26:06
Speaker 5: Your first big break getting in the national television can you talk about that? And then also seeing it transcend into what it's become, and obviously the.

00:26:16
Speaker 1: Spotlight of Stephen A. Smith.

00:26:17
Speaker 5: But when was your first big break on when you do hit that national television scene.

00:26:21
Speaker 3: I think when people would say when it was CNNSI, which was a big deal because I was on the NBA show on Sunday mornings. But I would say the real big break was when I went to Fox Sports Television because it was before the formation of the best damn sports show period, and I was on their national sports. They had their national sports desk. Kevin Frazier, who's now at Entertainment Tonight, was one of the hosts along with various others. He's a dear friend of mine and I went there. Jim Rome had Rome The last word I believe was the name of the show when it kime the ESPN, it was Rome is Burning, which is always a great name. I always loved that name. But I was there, and Jim Rohn would bring me into his office after shows and talk to me and give me guidance about some of the mind fields to maneuver through and what kind of things to watch out for, which I was always greatly appreciative for. And so I would call that my first big break because being in television and making that kind of noise when ESPN was so prolific, that was one thing, but then the creation of the best damn sports show period. They offered me the job full time. I turned it down, which is how John Sally got offered the job. The reason I turned it down is because I knew that my aspirations would end up at ESPN one day, and I knew in order to achieve that, I had to be taken seriously, and I would never be able to be taken seriously if I was sitting next to a comedian that was Tom Onnold every day. I'm not talking about him specifically, I'm talking about any comedian.

00:27:53
Speaker 4: It was a comedic show, or at least they aspired for it to be.

00:27:57
Speaker 3: That way, and for me to go there and sit next to him every day, I knew.

00:28:02
Speaker 4: Esthetically, optics wise, that.

00:28:05
Speaker 3: Would not be a good look if I wanted to be taken seriously. So I declined to play that role on that show and instead elected simply to be an NBA insider for that network, and lo and behold. A year later, ESPN came calling, and two thousand and three I landed at ESPN and everything is taken off since then?

00:28:28
Speaker 2: How do you get to that conclusion with best dam of sports show period where they're offering you a job, They're offering you probably more money than you've been making before, and to have the wherewithal to sit there and be like, tactically strategically in this video game of life I'm playing, this is not the move to make. Although it's better right now than it is.

00:28:44
Speaker 4: Same thing you're doing now. You're playing a long game.

00:28:47
Speaker 3: You know, Clicks would be nice, Views per episode would be nice. A subscriber base that builds is something that you want. We all know what the business entails. But if you want to do something and just be a one off, that's entirely different than building a career that's sustainable. And for me, I always played the long game. I still do. I think ahead. You know, somebody asked me the other day, They said yo, man, what did you do when you got your contract in twenty eighteen?

00:29:20
Speaker 4: I said, I went home.

00:29:22
Speaker 3: I was a little sad for a little while because I had lost my mom a year earlier. God rest her soul after long battle with cancer. And I said, so I licked my wounds there because I was sad because I knew the kind of money that I was earning, what I was going to be able to do for her if she had been alive, and I had never had a chance to do that, you know, for what I would have been able to do for alfter I signed that contract. But then ultimately I spent some time with my sisters and you know, and my family, my daughters and everything like that for the weekend. That Monday morning, I woke up and they said, what were you thinking about?

00:29:59
Speaker 4: I said, my next contract? And I wasn't playing.

00:30:03
Speaker 3: I knew that I had five and a half years to go, and I was thinking about five and a half years down the road. What am I going to do and where am I going to be in five and a half years. And that is my mentality always to try to maintain three, five, ten steps ahead, to see the forest from the trees to anticipate the kind of things that are going to happen, so I'm not lost in the shuffle, and we're not rewinding the clock back to two thousand and nine where I'm asked out, unemployed, wondering what my prospects are, wondering whether or not I have any living off my savings, and knowing that I had about six to eight months to survive on that. My goal is to never be in that position again. And so I think, like that.

00:30:47
Speaker 1: What is your vision? What are your vision for yourself down the road?

00:30:51
Speaker 5: Like you know, obviously you sign the massive deal with ESPN, You're You're Stephen A.

00:30:54
Speaker 1: Smith, You've come out with the podcast.

00:30:56
Speaker 5: Everybody knows this media landscape on the leveraging building your own platform. Okay, I'm on this massive network. You might think you're.

00:31:03
Speaker 1: Building me up.

00:31:04
Speaker 5: Let me go show you how I can do it on my own as well. What is the north star look like for you five ten years done there? Well?

00:31:09
Speaker 3: The north star for me is to have that level of independence, to establish it in such a way where I'm there because I want to be there, not because I need to be there. I love working for Disney and ESPN. I love being associated with the world of sports. I think that's one of the five pillars in this nation that you want to attach yourself to if you can pull it off. And I'm certainly not interested in giving that up. But I'm neither going to lie nor be apologetic about what i want for myself. I've done a lot at ESPN. My contract's up in seventeen months. I'm interested in staying if I have the opportunity to do an abundance of other things that I want to do. If that opportunity doesn't present itself, then I'll have decisions to make, and so will they. I own my own production company. I'm producing a docu series. Actually, it comes out later this month as a three part series on the history of sports commentators. I've got another series that has been green lit, a drama series that I've created that I'm not at liberty to talk about, but it has nothing to do with Disney or ESPN. I've created a drama series that's coming out. I've got my podcast, which is not really a podcast, it's a show. Why because I spent my own money and seven figures to build my own television studio, I want people to look at it and think hybrid. It not linear, it's not digital. It could be both. You want a linear sports show, got you? You want a sports digital show? Got you? You want a podcast? Got you? You want a late night show? Done?

00:32:43
Speaker 4: You want an afternoon talk show? Fine?

00:32:45
Speaker 3: You want me to be another version of PTI or something like that.

00:32:50
Speaker 4: Good. You want another creation of First Take? Fine?

00:32:53
Speaker 3: You want me to create a weekly format show that would rival Real Time with Bill Maher or the John Oliver Show or the Daily Show. Fine, whatever it is, I can do it, because I've shown I can do it. And so that's where my mentality is having the doors open, the opportunities available to me, and being in the position to explore things that I may have never imagined because I never knew it was available to me. Because all anybody thought about when they saw me with sports, now they don't think like that anymore. They see my range. So who's to say whether it's me or somebody else that wants to work with me comes forth with a level of creativity and ingenuity necessary to say, Stephen Aate is what we think we could do with you and for you is the kind of money that you can make. Because the one thing I will never apologize for I am about my money. I want to get paid. I ain't apologizing for that shit to anybody. I'm not talking about Disney, I'm not talking about ESPN. I'm talking about colleagues, contemporaries, people who have been in this business, who knows what it takes to succeed. Look at my resume, look at what I've accomplished. Oh, make no mistake. I intend to get paid.

00:34:11
Speaker 4: I can tell you that.

00:34:12
Speaker 2: Right now on this on YouTube and we post this black and white music behind it self titles the Whole Thing that is Gonna Go Nuts. I know you, I know you got to leave. But obviously the competitive drive the why you have literally everything. And in sports, when you're on a team, your goal is to win the Super Bowl or the NBA Championship, all these different things. You're competing against other teams, but also internally in the on the team you're at, you're competing with the guys around you. And so ESPN comes in. You talked about two billion views, you talked about being the man number one for twelve years, and you see ESPN making a pivot to McAfee. Obviously great for the network. How do you in your mindset view. A guy like McAfee, who is extremely good at his job in a lot of ways, is changing the course of mainstream media and all those things competitive standpoint. Also as a as a partner.

00:35:02
Speaker 3: I am an aberration in this regard. I love Pat McAfee, love the death, love the death. I love his swag. I love the fact that he's an honest brother. He don't give shit, lets you know exactly where he's staying. That's my kind of dude. That works for me now as he as polished politically as me, Nope, because he has no desire to be number one and number two if we're being honest.

00:35:29
Speaker 4: He's white and I'm black. He didn't have to be.

00:35:31
Speaker 1: I had to be.

00:35:32
Speaker 3: So I get all of that, and I'm not knocking him for it. I get it. Pat McAfee is a sensational talent, and it would be stupid for me not to root for him because he's one of the pioneers in this business, just like Bill Simmons is, just like Joe Rogan is in others. What they have done for themselves in the digital stratospy, it speaks for itself.

00:35:56
Speaker 4: I'm new to this.

00:35:56
Speaker 3: I'm a baby, I got I'm approaching five hundred and fifty thous and subscribers in ten ten and a half months. People see me, Oh my god, you're averaging over two thousand subscribers a day.

00:36:06
Speaker 4: And look at the views forever. So it's just climbing and climbing.

00:36:09
Speaker 3: And look at the consistency to growth, especially by God Bailey, the social media gurule. I mean these strategies. He's painting this beautiful picture every day. I'm looking at the fact that my numbers pale in comparison to those folks who have been there and have like a four.

00:36:22
Speaker 4: Or five, seven, eight year head start on me. Why because I'm looking at who's number one?

00:36:27
Speaker 1: And why?

00:36:28
Speaker 4: Okay?

00:36:29
Speaker 3: But in the same breath, don't get it twisted. I love Pat pet knows that I'm rooting for him. I help him anyway. I can't help him. But we know who number one in linear television is. You know, way backseat, you've been number one for twelve years. People come, people go, people come, people stay.

00:36:50
Speaker 4: But there's a top perch.

00:36:53
Speaker 3: Now you could take it away, knock on wood. It could be next year, be next week, it could be two years, five years from now, whatever. But Since twenty twelve, it's been me with Skip, Payler's with Adam, with Max Kellerman, with Adam with a Polpoerrie of contributes. It don't matter. I come to win, and when it comes to linear television, that's exactly what the fuck I have done. And so my attitude is, as long as I'm doing it, I'm gonna continue to win.

00:37:21
Speaker 4: McAfee or no McAfee, get up or no get up.

00:37:24
Speaker 3: It don't matter who it is, FS One, Comcast, whatever you come for me, I'm coming for you.

00:37:29
Speaker 4: I'm here to win.

00:37:31
Speaker 3: Digital is different because I'm a baby, I'm crawling, I'm an infant. You understand I'm saying I ain't even learn how to walk yet. You understand them saying let alone run and sprint. But once I get to that point, I'm a comfort folks then too. But in the process of doing so, it will never be to root for them to fail. And that's why I'm very guarded when people sit up there and they try to remember Dan Levata said one time, you know, he wants to ruin Skip's career, and he had to retract that statement because that's totally fault. I never want Skip to fail. I just don't want them to be number one over me. Same thing with Keith Shawn, Michael IRV and Richard Shermanham. These are my boys. I don't want them to fail, but they know who's trying to be number one. And look, these are Hall of famers, these are Super Bowl champions. When they roll up over there, Yeah.

00:38:19
Speaker 4: Man, we know you.

00:38:20
Speaker 3: I said, you know I'm coming for you, right, you know you know you don't expect to beat me.

00:38:25
Speaker 4: You understand now.

00:38:27
Speaker 3: Of course, one day somebody can hell, it could be them with somebody else, but all in fun, I'm letting them know I don't ever root against you.

00:38:37
Speaker 4: I don't ever want you to fail.

00:38:39
Speaker 3: But in the same breath, it is perfectly within my right to want to be number one. And I want to be that guy that's at the top of the perch that reaches back white and black, finding young talent folks on a come up, inspiring and motivating and assisting others in being their best selves.

00:38:56
Speaker 4: But do I want you to be better than me? No?

00:38:59
Speaker 3: No, And I'm gonna do everything that I can to make sure you're not better than me. I've done it in linear television. I'm going to continue to do it in linear television at least as long as I have a contract to do so, and hopefully I'll be able to do it in the digital stratospy as well, and then after that.

00:39:18
Speaker 2: It's kind of production we're doing around here that we're trying to throw in this talking about being the one Steve A.

00:39:23
Speaker 1: This has been an honor man, Thank you so much.

00:39:26
Speaker 2: I wish we had a longer time. I don't know if you saw on the internet all black versus all white team.

00:39:31
Speaker 4: Okay, I did not see. You didn't see that. I did not see.

00:39:33
Speaker 1: Have been something you be covering, you know that one?

00:39:36
Speaker 2: And if you look at the old white team except for that backing on defense, not a bad squad.

00:39:41
Speaker 4: I'll check it out, Yeah, I'll check it out.

00:39:42
Speaker 2: I think I think the bunch squads minus twenty four and a half when we go.

00:39:46
Speaker 4: Well over it.

00:39:46
Speaker 3: But it'll be all right, Okay, Hey, we'll get your man, siate, y'all man, all the best of both of y'all.

00:39:51
Speaker 4: Man. Keep doing the great job been doing.

00:39:53
Speaker 1: We'll be seeing you soon, all right, yes, sir, take ca