Never-shy sports talker Stephen A. Smith, recently briefly suspended by ESPN for saying something not politically correct (No! Not Stephen A. Smith! But isn’t that what you pay him for?), will now move to SiriusXM and join the Mad Dog Sports Radio channel (featuring someone else who has gotten in trouble with his mouth). This addition will certainly take that channel’s Highly Opinionated Ego level to stratospheric, if not orbital, levels.
Smith will have a daily, two-hour afternoon show, 1–3 p.m., starting Sept. 2. “I’ve waited a long time for this. All I’m going to say is Sept. 2 can’t arrive soon enough. So buckle up! Because I’m coming,” Smith said.
But Smith won’t be fully cutting his ties with ESPN. He’ll still be on his “First Take” show, along with making guest appearances and retaining some analyst gigs.
And who will be doing the production of “The Stephen A. Smith Show” on SiriusXM? None other than ESPN. They aren’t going to let a moneymaker like Smith get away, even if they are nervous about letting him on their air for too long in one sitting, lest he say something that will offend the wrong portion of the audience.
ESPN’s chief lemonade maker, ESPN Senior Vice President, Production, Business Divisions, Traug Keller explained, “This is an exciting new business opportunity for ESPN Audio. By creating outstanding exclusive audio content for SiriusXM, in this case ‘The Stephen A. Smith Show,’ we are maximizing our presence on a variety of platforms that expand our reach and options for sports fans.”
