Friday marked the highly discussed final episode of the beloved ESPN studio show Around the Horn. And while countless fans of the show were understandably upset about its end, host Tony Reali tried his best to make the final show a celebration of all of the great times had on the program.
In an ode to the hit 1990 mobster movie Goodfellas, Reali started Friday’s show by saying that he “always wanted to be a sportscaster” instead of “always wanted to be a gangster” before recreating the infamous scene where Henry Hill, the main character, walked through the back door of the restaurant.
Walking through the production room behind the scenes with the same song playing in Goodfellas, “Then He Kissed Me“, Reali gave a special shoutout to the producers and camera crew behind the scenes who have played an integral role in the success of the show.
Once the show got started, viewers at home at long last got the highly discussed answer to the question of which four panelists would be on the final airing of the show. And to perhaps nobody’s surprise, it was four pillars to the show over the years, including Bob Ryan, J.A. Adande, Bill Plaschke and Woody Paige.
The general theme of Friday’s show was understandably about the looming end of the show. So naturally, the first topic discussed was who the “GOAT” athlete has been since the show debuted in 2002.
Aside from Bob Ryan, who made the argument for Tiger Woods, the general consensus from everyone else was that the correct answer was LeBron James, who has inexplicably outlived Around the Horn in terms of the amount of time he has been discussed in the mainstream media, dating back to his days in high school.
Then, each of the four panelists would have the chance to deliver one last “facetime” before departing for good from Around the Horn, each using the time to discuss various different elements of how the show impacted sports media as a whole over the years.
After a commercial break, four more panelists who were similarly integral in the history of Around the Horn, Tim Cowlishaw, Kevin Blackistone, Frank Isola, and Jackie MacMullan, were given the chance to deliver their own goodbye of sorts in their own facetime segment.
In the last few minutes of the show, Tony Reali peeled back the curtain on his role as the moderator of the show, going into detail about the point system on the show and is comparable to life in that it is incredibly unpredictable for panelists on the show.
“I wanted to host the most real show I could,” said Reali. “So I engineered the scoring system to be real and lifelike. Here is what I want to tell you today. The system, totally, purposefully unpredictable, just like life. Intentionally changing, just like life. Some days, stats got you big points. Other days, the exact opposite. I wanted receipts, proof, timeline, everything. Also access, journalists who were there, I would award points for that.
“What I’m saying is, I threw a little bit of everything into our scoring sauce. The blood, the sweat, the heart, heart made it go. Because life scores us all differently every day. With a rulebook that changes every day. You have to roll with it, through good and bad. That’s how I feel. So that’s how I scored Around the Horn. That’s the secret right there.”
In the last minute of the last airing of Around the Horn ever, Reali informed viewers of where they can find content from him in the future via his website and his new YouTube channel, before discussing the lasting legacy of Around the Horn.
“Now, I’m going to do something,” said Reali. “And you are going to call me cheesy. But I am going to reach out my hand. Just at home, everybody here, reach out the hand. Come with me, come with me where it is real. More smiles to come. Connect at TonyReali.com, my new YouTube page, Team Reali, and even right this moment, I’ll be on YouTube live. Come by and say hello. Let me tell you what you mean to me.
“23 years is a goated number. 4,953 episodes is more than Oprah, and Letterman, and Sesame Street. The debate goes on now without us. But you pick up where we left off. We have 20 seconds left, we’re on an infinity and a half-hour break. I came into this world the stat boy. I’m gonna leave it a stat boy. Thank you very much. Here are the final stats of the greatest sports debate show that is scored of all-time, Around the Horn.”
Fans of Around the Horn have largely been eulogizing the show for the past month as is given how long we have known that the show was coming to the end.
But now that it is officially coming to an end, it was nice to see just how much everyone who has made the show great over the years has a special place in their heart for it, much like everyone who watched over the years at home.