Marcello Hernández is heading to the ESPYS.
ESPN announced Wednesday that the 28-year-old Saturday Night Live star will host the 2026 ESPYS on July 15, with the show airing live on ABC from the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center. It’s the first time the show has been held in New York City since 1999 — the ESPYS launched at Madison Square Garden in 1993 and called New York home for its first seven years — before moving to Las Vegas and Los Angeles for the next two-plus decades.
Hernández joined SNL in 2022 as its first Gen Z cast member and has become one of the show’s breakout stars over four seasons, known for his recurring character Domingo and his impressions of comedian Sebastian Maniscalco, among others. He was promoted to repertory status at the start of SNL‘s 50th season in 2024 and released his debut Netflix special Marcello Hernández: American Boy earlier this year.
“I started doing comedy 10 years ago, in Cleveland, Ohio, and I would take the train 12 hours to New York to sell comedy tickets on the street in Greenwich Village in exchange for stage time,” Hernández said in a statement. “It is an honor, and frankly feels crazy to be hosting the ESPYS this year in New York. I’m sure the energy is going to be great.”
Hernández grew up in Miami playing soccer competitively enough to train with the U15 Dominican Republic national team before continuing at John Carroll University in Ohio, and his SNL Weekend Update debut was a baseball bit that Lorne Michaels specifically coaxed out of him because of his obvious enthusiasm for the sport
“Marcello is one of the most electric, young comedians today,” ESPN vice president and ESPYS executive producer Craig Lazarus added. “His genuine enthusiasm for sports and his ties to New York City make him a natural fit to host this year’s ESPYS.”
Hernández takes over from Shane Gillis, who hosted last year’s show in Los Angeles after ESPN made what was at the time a genuinely surprising call to book one of comedy’s most unpredictable voices. Gillis went after Caitlin Clark, Donald Trump, Aaron Rodgers, and Karl-Anthony Towns, among others, in his opening monologue — including a Deshaun Watson massage joke he claimed he didn’t write — and delivered what was arguably the most memorable ESPYS monologue since Norm Macdonald’s in 1998.
Hernández joins a long list of comedians who have hosted the ESPYS over the years, including Gillis, Macdonald, Jimmy Kimmel, Tracy Morgan, and Joel McHale. The show airs July 15 at 8 p.m. ET on ABC and streams on the ESPN app, Disney+, and Hulu.
About Sam Neumann
Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.