Stephen A. Smith is at it again, making veiled threats toward another star athlete, this time Boston Celtics forward Jaylen Brown.
And as Smith pulls his usual card of threatening to reveal private information about Brown, FS1’s Nick Wright is pulling back the curtain on how Smith’s antics hurt the entire sports media ecosystem.
While Wright acknowledged in a long segment on his What’s Wright podcast this week that Smith “works as much as anybody in the business” and was tireless in climbing the ladder earlier in his career, Wright also said Smith is “delusional” if he thinks he is on the same tier of popularity or intrigue as someone like Brown.
“There’s a lot of Stephen A. that I think is admirable, and young people can learn from,” Wright said. “But these last few years, where he has convinced himself, it appears, that we the commentariat, we the critics, we the people who give opinions on the actual games, are equal stars and equal of important to the people who are playing the actual games, is delusional.”
To reinforce his point, Wright contrasted Smith’s record-breaking $100 million salary as a sports host with Brown’s relatively ordinary $300 million salary as a second-tier NBA star:
“God bless him and credit to him and I appreciate the rising tide lifting all boats, that is a reminder that no matter how big the commentator gets, he’ll never be quite as big as the people he’s commenting on if the tenth or 11th best guy in just one of the sport you cover is, by your metric, 3x-ing the salary, that’s a good idea of where we stand in the marketplace.”
Yet Wright said, Smith’s constant locking horns with athletes suggests he believes he is just as important to fans as the athletes themselves. In some cases, the examples are harmless, like when ESPN shows Smith walking into the arena as if he is playing in the game.
But in cases like the latest beef with Brown, in which Smith threatened to report private details, Wright argued that “talking to these guys like you’re a mob boss and they better watch what they say, there’s harm in it.”
In the big picture, Wright believes Smith is losing the plot, forgetting why fans watch First Take or his other content in the first place. And Wright believes the often menacing tenor of Smith’s commentary gives the rest of the media a bad rap.
“The audience appreciates us as side attractions to the big tent they came for. We are the ring toss and the dunk tank at the circus. But we’re not the lions jumping through flaming hoops. We are added benefit to the main event,” Wright explained.
“And if anybody ever gets it a little twisted that, ‘No, actually, I’m the main event,’ in my experience, the audience … are going to see this and be like, ‘Wait, what are you saying, bro? Are you telling this superstar athlete to stay in his lane? Are you a late-50s, early-60-year-old man getting in a war of words with a 29-year-old? Is that’s what’s happening?’ And it makes all of us look bad. And also, here’s the other thing. You’re the only guy who does it.”
Beyond the ripple effects Wright believes have gone through the industry as a result of Smith’s behavior, he also said it is just getting stale.
“Nobody else is just constantly using their platform to run back the same playbook that, if we’re being totally honest, we saw you run on Kevin Durant, I want to say a decade ago,” Wright said.
Smith famously spoke directly to Durant on First Take in 2015, telling the star forward, “You do not want to make an enemy out of me.”
Unlike Smith, Wright said his approach is to stay in his lane. Wright gave the example of his recent run-in with LaMelo Ball, which he intentionally allowed to die down after the Ball family called him out.
“I understand one of the taxes of being the style of broadcaster that I am, which occasionally ruffles some feathers … is that when they fire back, even if it is in your opinion inaccurate, misleading, unfair, the answer is not to go to the mattresses and escalate,” he said. “The answer is to stand by what you said, have a smile on your face, and recognize people are here to see them.”
Wright has grown more direct and vocal in his criticisms of Smith in recent years, but the feud with Brown has drawn the ire of many other commentators around the industry. And given that so many fans and viewers have grown tired of the hot takes and debates that Smith popularized, Wright clearly sees value in drawing a line between what he does and what he believes Smith is doing when he speaks so critically of athletes.
About Brendon Kleen
Brendon is a Media Commentary staff writer at Awful Announcing. He has also covered basketball and sports business at Front Office Sports, SB Nation, Uproxx and more.