Prior to launch, ESPN sales team thought ‘Around the Horn’ would ‘never do ratings’

23 years of Around the Horn are coming to an end this May, but it turns out it was a miracle the show ever got off the ground in the first place; it took a pushy executive to get the show greenlit.

Enter: Mark Shapiro.

Shapiro is currently the president and COO of Endeavor and TKO, but back in 2002 he was ESPN’s programming executive tasked with deciding what would go on the air and when. He had already spearheaded a massive hit with ESPN’s 5:30 p.m. ET show Pardon the Interruption, and the network was looking to replicate that success a half an hour prior.

But in speaking with Front Office Sport’s Ryan Glasspiegel, Shapiro said that ATH faced a bit more resistance from inside the network’s Bristol headquarters.

“All the sales guys were telling us, ‘It’s gonna hurt SportsCenter. We can’t sell it. It’ll never do ratings. It’ll never hit critical mass,'” Shapiro told FOS. “I can’t tell you what we were up against. If I wasn’t running programming—and don’t get me wrong, the success of a show has to do with talent and format, and a lot of people deserve credit for that—but in running programming, I was able to kind of stuff it through.”

That seems to be what happens when you create one of the most popular sports studio shows in history. And according to Glasspiegel, the success of ESPN’s 5 p.m. hour led to an expansion of the genre with shows such as Jim Rome is Burning and 1st and 10 in the preceding hour.

It’s difficult to imagine what ESPN’s evening lineup would have looked like without ATH the past two decades-plus. The show’s departure will leave a sizable programming hole to fill, and ironically, it’ll be filled with SportsCenter, at least for the time being.

Not much has been revealed regarding ESPN’s thinking surrounding the show’s cancellation. ATH still rated solidly, especially when considering the decline in cable viewership more generally. And it’s not as if the show is very expensive to produce.

It’s funny how things can often come full-circle in this business; from concern over ATH hurting SportsCenter, to having that same show replace the program 23 years later.

What ESPN does next with its 5 p.m. hour will surely receive outsized attention considering what show it’s replacing. One can only hope it’ll possess the same creativity that drove Around the Horn‘s creation.