Everyone has their own theories about why ESPN is pulling the plug on Around the Horn.
The long-running debate show, which has spanned 23 years, will air its final episode on Friday, May 23. That left us at Awful Announcing with two key questions: Why is it ending, and who will be on the final show? Brendon Kleen tackled the latter, while The Ringer’s Bryan Curtis attempted to explain the former.
Curtis’ take? ESPN simply doesn’t have room for ATH anymore. But if you ask former panelist Jay Mariotti, the answer is “woke.”
On his personal Substack, The Sports Column, Mariotti claimed the show effectively ended when he left — never mind that he stopped appearing on the show after being charged with seven misdemeanors related to an alleged domestic disturbance in 2010. He later pleaded no contest to charges involving stalking and assaulting his ex-girlfriend.
“We have no plans to use him [Mariotti] at this time,” ESPN spokesman Josh Krulewitz said at the time.
That turned out to be an understatement. His last Around the Horn appearance aired the day before his arrest.
Yet in his version of events, ATH was over long before ESPN officially pulled the plug. Speaking with Mike McCarthy of Front Office Sports, Mariotti lamented ESPN’s so-called “woke” agenda, accusing former network president John Skipper of stacking the panel with “anti-Trump” personalities.
“John Skipper ran ESPN at the time,” he tells McCarthy. “I think what John Skipper wanted from some of the shows was he started to install people on the shows who became anti-Trump — can I put it that way? Our show was about sports. Honestly, we did delve into politics. But you were never going to get me on ripping the president or praising the president. We’re not going that far. I started to watch the show and I would see people down and out anti-Trump.
“I’m not going to tell you whether I’m a Trump guy or not. That’s really irrelevant. I did not want to watch a sports show and see it delve into that. And I think it started at the top from management, at the time, that they wanted this to be the tone of the show. Jemele Hill had her say. Michael Smith had his say. I was like, ‘Can we get back to this?’”
A stick-to-sports mandate, if you will.
But Mariotti insisted he wasn’t taking a political stance himself, just that he didn’t want politics in sports programming.
“I think they lost some audience. That’s rather obvious. Nobody’s turning on ESPN to watch this,” Mariotti continued. “They want to see what’s going on in the NBA and the NFL and so on. If there are political issues, fine. But please don’t turn it into this. I think they lost audience. Those people inevitably left the show. Skipper inevitably left the network… As I said, PTI has certain numbers. Around the Horn does not have anywhere near those numbers. They should get rid of the show — because there’s nothing left.”
Again, if you believe his version of events, ATH went “too woke” and is now left in the ashes of ESPN’s shifting priorities — or, more likely, in the rearview mirror of a network that moved on without him.
“We went through a difficult time in this country. I did too, and you did too,” Mariotti tells McCarthy. “But if there’s one reason why we’re turning on ESPN from 2010 to 2020, in that general range, we’re still looking at sports. Stephen A. (Smith) delves into all sorts of things. He’s even talking about running for president. Well, good for him.
“The point being that when you’re turning it on, and he’s on with his partner, they’re going to delve into LeBron playing with Luka, they’re going to get into Butler playing with Curry, they’re going to talk about Oklahoma City, they’re going to get into that… Back then I honest to god don’t know what they were getting into half the time.”
Mariotti later admitted to FOS and McCarthy that he hasn’t actually watched Around the Horn in years. He doesn’t know who’s on the show, who’s coming next, or who they’re introducing to the audience.
In other words, he’s confident ATH lost its way — he just has no idea what it actually looks like now.