ESPN’s firebrand sports host Stephen A. Smith has three words for industry insider critics who wished that he was laid off along with other prominent personalities – and he did so with anatomical specificity.
As has been reported ad nauseam, the new leadership at Disney, which owns ESPN, created a veritable graveyard filled with the casualties of cutbacks at the worldwide sports network, including Keyshawn Johnson, Jalen Rose, Max Kellerman, Steve Young and a score of others who had been with the leading sports outlet for many years.
When Smith emerged as one of the survivors of Disney’s brutal cutbacks, some of his critics inside the industry bemoaned and lamented the fact that he will remain at the top-rated show, “First Take.”
“Let me address something,” Smith began on his podcast the “Stephen A. Smith Show.” “To some of the haters out there about me, y’all can kiss my a– twice. I’m talking directly to the people in the industry who sat up there and said ‘Why isn’t Stephen A. gone?’ Ladies and gentlemen, we got a few people here at ESPN getting paid more than me. They don’t have the number one show, the top ratings. They don’t generate more revenue. How come y’all don’t bring their names up? And by the way, none of them are Black.”
Smith was particularly indignant that the critics did not name the White ESPN personalities who remain and make more money than Smith, including Pat McAfee and Troy Aikman.
“How come you don’t bring their names up? I wonder why? I’m talking to those folks, the critics in the media, or the wannabe media with the blogosphere and websites that never went through the terrain of being members, official members, of the fourth estate. I’m talking about them. How come y’all don’t bring them up? But me, who’s been number one, who’s got the top-rated show [and] who, by the way, is an executive producer on that top-rated show – my name comes up.”
