The decision to cancel Around the Horn didn’t happen overnight.
But with no obvious replacement lined up, just a Matt Barrie and Christine Williamson-hosted SportsCenter filling the slot for now, it begs the question: why pull the plug at all? As Richard Deitsch noted on his Sports Media with Richard Deitsch podcast, it’s hard to feel too bad for a show that ran 23 years and had a solid run. Still, the timing is strange.
There was no clear catalyst. It wasn’t a ratings collapse. It wasn’t “too woke.” And yet, ESPN made the call without a definitive plan in place. Sure, there have been whispers about new vehicles for Shannon Sharpe (prior to his alleged sexual assault lawsuit) or Peter Schrager, but nothing official.
As ESPN historian James Andrew Miller sees it, what comes next could be one of the network’s most daunting programming challenges yet.
“You get to the next obvious question: Are they going to put something in its place? And if they do, developing that show for that timeslot will be like climbing Everest on a cold day in your shorts,” Miller explained. “Because it is — I understand [that you have a good lead-out] — but guess what? We will see. This is not a gimme. This not a hanging curve over the plate. It’s going to be very difficult, because you’re going to want to appeal to a certain demo. At the same time, they’re going to have to triage in terms of what kind of information is not duplicative.
“It’s a very interesting challenge. I’m curious to see what they come up with.”
So is everyone else. Deitsch floated the idea that ESPN might lean into an NFL-centric show, which tracks, given the Sharpe and Schrager murmurs, and the fact that the league has become a 52-week product for the network. It’s ESPN’s most reliable investment, and frankly, its safest bet.
“The great thing about the NFL — they did this more than a decade ago — they made themselves a 52-week sport,” Miller said. “Yeah, of course. If they want to do that, that’s definitely possible. But again, you know what? Let’s face it: look at some of ESPN’s shoulder programming for the NFL. They’ve had problems since Boomer left on Sundays… The pregame on Monday night? Aye yai yai.”
“We’re talking about NFL shoulder programming,” Miller continued. “ESPN, of all places — they certainly do it with the NBA — and there’s enough examples out there to suggest they know it with the NFL that it is not a gimme. It is very difficult to create the architecture for a new show that’s going to have legs.”
For a network that prides itself on having the answers, ESPN suddenly has a lot of questions. Around the Horn may have been long in the tooth, but at least it was consistent, familiar, and built to last. What comes next? Even ESPN doesn’t seem to know, and that should worry them more than it should surprise us.