ESPN has agreed with Stephen A. Smith on a new contract that will pay the bombastic sports commentator $100 million over five years and allow him to scale back his network appearances so he can focus more time talking about politics, The Athletic first reported this week.
An ESPN spokesperson initially declined to comment to The Independent on Smith’s contract. However, later on Friday morning, the network released a statement announcing it had signed Smith to a new deal — though financial terms were not revealed.
“ESPN has agreed to a multi-year contract renewal with Featured Commentator/Executive Producer, First Take Stephen A. Smith,” the press release stated. “His deal keeps him as the fixture of First Take, ESPN’s weekday morning studio debate show. It also includes appearances across ESPN programming.”
“I’m happy and honored to remain a member of the Disney/ESPN family for, at least, the next five years,” Smith said in the press release. “There’s only bigger and bigger things ahead. It starts with continuing to put in that work. See y’all soon.”
ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro also described Smith as “a difference maker” and that ESPN is “grateful he will remain at ESPN.”
.jpg)
While Smith will continue to host his morning sports talk show First Take on the network, he will be less of a presence elsewhere across ESPN. This includes stepping back from his regular role on the network’s NBA pregame show, though he is expected to pop up periodically on some of ESPN’s other top-tier programming like Monday Night Football’s pregame.
Prior to this new agreement, Smith had been a part of Countdown, the network’s most-watched NBA pregame program. However, after Warner Bros. Discovery lost its basketball programming, ESPN signed a deal with TNT to air its seminal Inside the NBA, which features Charles Barkley and Kenny Smith.
The lighter workload for more cash — Smith had previously been making $12 million a year — frees up the brash sports pundit to further focus his attentions beyond ESPN, which would appear to include his increasingly politics-driven podcast and potential political ambitions.
In recent months, and especially since Donald Trump’s electoral victory in November, Smith has grown more outspoken about hot-button culture war issues and political figures. Besides sounding off on his podcast about Kamala Harris’ failed presidential run and how much Democrats “suck,” Smith has regularly appeared on his close friend Sean Hannity’s Fox News program and other talk shows to pontificate about politics.
In fact, Smith’s foray into political punditry and vocal criticism of the Democratic Party — while still speaking out against Trump — has led to the sports commentator being floated as a possible 2028 Democratic presidential candidate, a notion that Smith has only fed into recently. “I can beat them all,” Smith boasted on The View this week.
Still, not everyone is impressed with Smith dipping his toe into the world of national politics. “When it comes to sports, I find him to be really insightful,” veteran Democratic strategist James Carville complained last month. “When it comes to politics, he don’t know his a** from a hole in the ground.”
Additionally, Smith recently caught flak for his friendly sitdown with controversial far-right extremist Candace Owens, who has faced condemnation from both conservatives and liberals for peddling antisemitic tropes and outrageous conspiracy theories. At the same time, Smith did find a fan of his Owens interview in notorious white supremacist Nick Fuentes. “Stephen A. Smith had Candace Owens on. He’s clearly red-pilled,” Fuentes gleefully declared this week.
Smith’s massive new contract and decreased responsibilities also come as ESPN’s parent company Disney just slashed roughly 200 jobs across ABC News, shuttered the political data analysis site FiveThirtyEight, and consolidated several of its news programs — leaving network staffers “crying and upset.” Furthermore, ESPN parted ways with over 20 of its top on-air talent last fall amid budget cuts.
ABC News staffers ‘crying and upset’ as GMA3 gutted amid mass layoffs
Elizabeth Warren responds to Trump calling her ‘Pocahontas’
Trump threatens Russia with ‘large scale’ sanctions after massive missile attack
Trump establishes ‘digital Fort Knox’ for bitcoin but crypto markets slump: Live
US added 151,000 jobs but unemployment up in first Trump administration report
These Republican senators have broken away from Trump on tariffs
