For the last month, Stephen A. Smith has dominated the headlines. A huge new contract, personal feuds, hot sports takes, politics, running for president. It’s a lot even by his lofty standards of over-saturation throughout the years. But in just one interview with LeBron James, Pat McAfee was able to say more about his influence over the sports world than Stephen A. Smith could do in a dozen episodes of First Take, podcast appearances, and interviews.
The biggest sports story following Smith the last several weeks has been his ongoing feud with LeBron James after their viral confrontation at a Los Angeles Lakers game on March 6. Even though it was only just three short weeks ago, it feels like it’s been ages just because of how omnipresent it has been in the news cycle.
And much of that is due to Stephen A. Smith being completely unwilling and unable to let it go. After appearing somber when addressing it the day after on First Take, Smith launched multiple monologues about LeBron James, Bronny James, media relationships, and pretty much everything else in the weeks since. The topic came up again when LeBron sat down with Pat McAfee in Indianapolis for an interview that aired on Wednesday. Even before the interview aired in full, Smith directed a rant at James for his opinion about how Giannis Antetokounmpo would perform in the 1970s NBA, calling it “passive aggressive.”
We are reaching a breaking point for those who have lived and breathed Stephen A. Smith’s content for the last decade and more. And the price that Smith is paying for being so ubiquitous in sports, television, politics, podcasts, and social media is that nothing he is saying or doing is truly moving the needle anymore. Nothing is resonating. One day, he’s trying to bury the hatchet with RGIII, and the next day, he’s interviewing Ben Shapiro on his podcast. One day he’s saying that he stands by his criticism of Bronny James, the next day he’s saying he was always a believer. Is he trying to be the next Donald Trump? The next Bill Maher? The next Joe Rogan? All of the above?
McAfee’s interview with LeBron was only hours old, and before we could even fully appreciate it, Smith was back on his podcast reliving his confrontation and talking about throwing hands with the King. And then to lead off First Take on Thursday, he went on ANOTHER fifteen minute plus monologue about James in responding to the interview once more. It included even more attacks against LeBron ranging from his relationship with Kobe Bryant and Dwyane Wade to unfavorably comparing him to Michael Jordan for the 459,436th time.
Stephen A. Smith dishing out his hot takes and taking centerstage with his bombast about the Lakers, Cowboys, or whoever is one thing. But now he is pushing everyone and everything else aside and turning one of the top sports shows in America into his airing of personal grievances.
Smith isn’t only beating the topic to death; he’s pulling the skeleton out of its casket and putting the bones in a woodchipper.
To think anything in this cacophony of noise actually matters is just preposterous. Ludicrous. Even asinine. Everything just gets lost in the ether of Being Stephen A. Smith.
After this week’s events, the dividing line between Stephen A. Smith and Pat McAfee couldn’t be clearer. What McAfee is doing actually matters to the masses, while what Smith is doing does not.
ESPN has invested tens of millions of dollars in Smith and McAfee, arguably making them the new faces of the network. And if reports from last year are to be believed, the relationship between the two is somewhere between icy and fractured. When he first got to ESPN, Pat McAfee regularly appeared with Stephen A. Smith and First Take throughout the 2023 football season. That was not the case in 2024.
And after this never-ending feud, LeBron James just happened to show up for an hour-long exclusive sit-down interview with the one man at ESPN who can claim that he’s a bigger star than Stephen A. Smith? There’s a reason why LeBron didn’t sit down with Brian Windhorst, Malika Andrews, Mike Greenberg, or anybody else. And the message being sent should be abundantly clear. James’ comments on Smith may have only been 2% of the entire McAfee interview, but listening to Smith’s take you would think the entire thing was orchestrated as an attempt to get one over on him. Who knows, maybe it was. But the optics of James and McAfee laughing joking together and Smith hijacking his own program because he’s so bothered by it shows who is really winning here.
But while Smith has talked for weeks at James and about James, with diminishing returns seemingly each time, McAfee let LeBron do the talking and make a ton of news. McAfee’s athlete-friendly, laid-back interview style saw James more relaxed in an interview setting than he has been for years… at least for the parts ESPN viewers could hear over the dropped audio censoring.
We got insights on everything from The Decision to Pat Riley banning chocolate chip cookies, Bronny’s development, and, yes, even the feud with Stephen A. LeBron didn’t always shine (sorry Brian Windhorst), but ESPN likely couldn’t be happier with the interview, the publicity, and the number of views received on linear, digital, social, and everywhere in between.
What does it say about the pair that Pat McAfee could make more meaningful news in a one-hour interview with LeBron James than Stephen A. Smith has over the entire last month?
Even for those who cover sports media, the constant churn of Stephen A. Smith news has reached absurd levels of exhaustion — especially this month. There was his feud with James, his feud with Robert Griffin III, his feud with Draymond Green, his new ESPN contract, and his continued grand political tour of conservative media personalities and constant talk about running for president. Add on top of that things like challenging President Donald Trump to a DEI debate and trying to resuscitate the career of former First Take partner Skip Bayless and it has become a content tsunami like we’ve never seen before.
There is almost a Trumpian-level strategy happening right before our eyes, where Stephen A. Smith is attempting to flood the zone with anything and everything imaginable. And it may be working to lift his political profile. His dalliances with running for POTUS and becoming a mainstream political commentator have seen him become a shiny new object, especially to a curious conservative media. But where he made his name in the sports world, it has produced an overwhelming sense of fatigue.
Sure, Pat McAfee isn’t exactly underexposed in his own right. After all, he has his own daily show, WWE Raw announcing gig, and College GameDay job. And while his own heightened sense of self-awareness can put himself at the center of headlines (Norby Williamson, NFL Draft drama, Caitlin Clark, Aaron Rodgers, etc.), he makes a point to sell himself as your fun-loving sports outlet… at least if you aren’t on the List of McAfee like his former NFL team for example. He’s the guy that can get the big get. He’s the guy that can get the quotes. He’s the guy that athletes want to talk to and fans want to watch.
What would you choose as a sports fan? Endure another rant and controversy of the day with Stephen A. Smith where he talks to the camera to for 15 minutes straight to soothe his own ego, or sit and chill with Pat McAfee and LeBron James? What social media video would you watch? What article would you click on? If ESPN is selling these two visions for what the present and future of sports talk can be, the more appealing choice is pretty clear.
During his (unsurprisingly) public contract maneuvering, Stephen A. Smith was very clear that he wanted to be the highest-paid personality at ESPN and surpass Pat McAfee’s massive deal. But in just one hour, McAfee proved he’s currently the most valuable personality at ESPN.
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