The Right Time with Bomani Jones - Bomani Jones & Michael Smith Reminisce on Around the Horn's Impact, ESPN Ups and Downs | 5.28

Episode Date: May 28, 2025

On today’s episode of The Right Time, Michael Smith, co-founder of Inflection Point Entertainment, joins Bomani Jones to discuss Around The Horn coming to an end after 23 years. The show starts with a mini discussion on New Orleans and imagining what Bo would've been like if he grew up in NOLA (2:10). Bo talks about Michael's career path and how he achieved so much at an young age (14:18) and why they both felt like Around the Horn was home for them early on in their careers (21:50). Bo was the first radio personality to be an Around the Horn regular (35:57) and Michael sheds light on how the Boston Globe played such a pivotal role in him getting on the show (39:58). They round out this episode with Bo saying it's extremely hard in this business to keep a tv show running for 23 years (1:04:30) and how PTI and Around The Horn shaped cable television forever. (1:08:25) . . . Subscribe to The Right Time with Bomani Jones on Spotify, Apple or wherever you get your podcasts and follow the show on Instagram, Twitter, and Tik Tok for all the best moments from the show. Download Full Podcast Here: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6N7fDvgNz2EPDIOm49aj7M?si=FCb5EzTyTYuIy9-fWs4rQA&nd=1&utm_source=hoobe&utm_medium=social Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-right-time-with-bomani-jones/id982639043?utm_source=hoobe&utm_medium=social Follow The Right Time with Bomani Jones on Social Media: http://lnk.to/therighttime Subscribe to Supercast for Ad-Free Episodes: https://righttime.supercast.com/ Support the Show: Discover faster, more reliable search with Perplexity today. Download the app or ask Perplexity anything at perplexity.com! https://pplx.ai/bomani-jones Download the DraftKings Pick Six app NOW and use code BOMANI. Better payouts. Bigger wins. Only with Pick6 from DraftKings. The Crown is yours. Go to zbiotics.com/BOMANI to learn more and get 15% off your first order when you use BOMANI at checkout. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the right time, a wave original presented by perplexity. My name is Bobani Jones. Thanks for listening wherever you get your podcast. Thanks for watching us on YouTube. Subscribe, like, rate us, review us, give us five stars. You only give us four stars. I'm inclined to believe you are a hater. It is that time of week where we have a guest join us coming to us live from the beautiful state of Connecticut, New Orleans, East. Oh, my.

Smith is going on, brother. You put the East in there. Oh, bro, that's, see, you just, man, your range knows no bounds. It's unbelievable. You know, I just, you know, I just, you know, brother. Brough, bro, you know, what you know about, what you know about the East Beasts? What you know about that? Oh, see.

I'm lost around a little bit now. You know, I was crossed the river, which, by the way, don't lose your thought. But, you know, like, people on the East Bank of the Mississippi call it cross the river, but so do the people on the West Bank. They call it cross river, too. But they can really cross the river. It's the same river. Exactly.

Same river. It's the same river. We both across the same river. But that's my thing about New Orleans folks, man. Y'all so dare provincial that like you would assume, like if you say it across the river, it can only be one thing, right? Like that is, that is y'all's get down. But New Orleans is one of those places.

I had a girlfriend in college who was from the east. And my dad beer for Louisiana and all that. Like, New Orleans is one of those places that I know just enough about to make conversation. and just enough I know just enough about to know y'all ain't playing around down there. No, no. We invented about that life.

About that action, about that life, standing on business, all of that originating to all if we just didn't necessarily call it that back in the 90s. But then I lived in the Seventh War, too. And, yeah, East Cross River, Seven War. Yeah, man, but I appreciate that. You took me home with that one introduction.

Speaking of home, like, you being a product of both Atlanta and Houston, you know. So, like, I wonder if you were Bumani Jones would have been like if you'd have grown up in New Orleans? Because you got so, like, you feel like a New Orleans dude in a lot of ways, man. I think you'd have fit right in in New Orleans. You fit in anywhere.

You could adapt to any environment. But I feel like New Orleans kind of speaks to your soul a little bit. Well, one thing, I would be better at fighting. Wait, wait, wait, don't be so sure. Because I didn't learn how to fight until I was older. You know what I'm saying? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. What happened when you got older was that you, like, technically learn how to fight.

Like, you'd be out there doing the Jewish kung fu, right? Right, right. What did they call it? Crime McGill. Yeah. Cromagall, yeah. Like, Max Kellerman does it because, of course, Max Kellerman would do it. Right?

Like, if you know Max even a little bit, it is the combination of the two things that Max is right. for stronger than anything else. Fighting and Judaism, right? Like it is, it put those two things together. But a point that I make, and by the way, hashtag, if you know, you know, I witness this myself with you, I ain't met a sucker from New Orleans yet. I, like there, you can't make it however many years in New Orleans that we, that we're

talking about. Yeah. And you and I have a little bit of something in it, right? I remember that night I saw yours tested and you rose to the occasion in a way that I cannot promise that I would have been able to. I probably would have been inclined toward a little more negotiation, right? No, no, no, no, no. That water in you was like, nope, it's going to stop right here.

It's gone too far. Oh, bad. You know what, man? Like, I wouldn't trade my upbringing for nothing. as hard as I try, it's almost impossible or replicate it for my kids. Because, like, seriously, no, and I appreciate that. And you and I have talked about this.

You asked to talk to my father about this, in fact. Right. It's like, because, you know, when you get to a certain tax bracket, it just gets really challenging to raise kids, not impossible by no means, but challenging to raise kids that are just comfortable. Because, again, that's why I talked to Mac, because, like, that's what you got.

I know that about you. It was like, you could converse with, you know, the most high class of people, and you could be just as comfortable in the streets. You know what I'm saying? And so, like, that's what I appreciate most about New Orleans, especially when I grew up in New Orleans. It felt like an all-black city.

It was a majority of black city. I won't insult present-day New Orleans by trying to speak to present-day New Orleans, which has evolved quite a bit since I grew up there and lived there, and obviously post-Katrina, which is, you know, 20 years ago now. But when I was growing up, man, like, And you know as much about New Orleans as anybody that lives there, let alone that didn't grow up there. You know what the culture was like back then, whether it was the music scene or whether it was a socioeconomic scene.

Like, you know, I feel like New Orleans rich in love was another thing that was born in New Orleans. Because, man, I felt like I had everything. And my parents was definitely living check to check. So I just feel like it just gave me like a sensibility, a perspective that I wouldn't trade for anything. I just think, with all due respect to everywhere else, I just think the best, most grounded people come from New Orleans. If I made flatter myself by saying that. Well, also, my favorite thing in New Orleans is New Orleans have the most, like,

sophisticated gangsters in the world. Not that every gangster in New Orleans is sophisticated, but it is entirely possible, man. That dude that just had their heat out on you in a second. You lucky he had to go read some poetry that night. You know what I'm saying? Like, like, like, like, like, like you look. You're lucky that he got a book that he just can't put down.

It's in everybody in New Orleans living like that, but who might be living like that would surprise you. The dude that'll bust your ass is the section leader for the marching band at Warren East. You know what I'm saying? Like, don't get it twisted. It's random. None of it else.

Like, it doesn't make, like, it makes sense in its own way, but none of it makes sense according to whatever paradigm that you are coming in with from somewhere else. Right. That is my whole thing about it, man. You never know how it's going to go. I had a dude in New Orleans last time I was there was for the Super Bowl,

this blackjack dealer. Oh, man. And, man, he hit me with some game that was so simple but so dead all, right? And it was about whether or not you should hit on 16, right? Tell me more. Because before you tell this story, we got to put this into context real quick. Because everybody has to understand why I just sat up in my chair in excitement. because, and I could get off in a whole different tangent about, you know, just on a deeper level.

But I don't know that I've had much fun as much fun in the last, I don't know what, decade as I have had sitting at the blackjack table next to this man right here at Aria in Vegas. Okay. That's what we do. When both talks blackjack, I get excited. But both won't hesitate to send me a fat-ass chip just to flex. So the thing that people need to understand. And now part of this, the purpose of this pie, man, me and Mike going to talk about around the hoarder in a couple.

So we kind of want to do like some reminiscing. But this is something for people to know, right? That boy Michael Smith had been on TV for like 10, 12, 13 years, something like that, and we're still riding that pushing that maximum. You just need to understand what kind of man that we are dealing with here, right? And so. Demo model maximum. Demo model maximum.

Yes, the maximal model maximum. Yes. The maximal was that thing when you got it. You just was committed in a way that was a little unnecessary given the directions that your life went in. Fair enough. Anyway, we go to Vegas for Summer League in 2019. And we're there.

And I am encouraging Michael Smith to, it's okay to spend a little more money, right? We could go ahead and do this. So we start playing blackjack, right? And so next thing I know, Mike Smith, is going home, and now he's playing blackjack getting ready for the next year when we come down there to play blackjack because we make our annual move to play blackjack. So I'm at the Harris right outside, right down the street from the French quarter in New Orleans. And I'm playing, I'm getting my ass handed to me, I would note. Anyway, I'm playing and I'm talking to buddy at the table.

And we're talking about hitting on 16. And he looked at me and he got the New Orleans accent that I don't even want to do. you know what I'm saying? One, because I won't get it right. But two, if I do get it right, it'll be too much for these ladies. You know what I'm saying? So anyway, buddy starts talking to me and he says, look, here's what I tell people about hitting on 16, okay? Look at me right now. Look what's in front of me. I got more money than anybody else here, right? I win more than anybody else here. And I hit on 16

every time. Why are you? The person that's probably going to win is hitting on 16. Don't you think you should hit on 16? The logic is irrefutable. Right?

Like that's how I feel like it comes up in those, by you talking to Cass in New Orleans when they hit you with the game, it's like, you know, that's right to the point. It's hard to argue it. But speaking of that, don't, you and I both always hit on 16? Well, I always hit on 16. I always hit on 16.

There's two types of people in this world. People that hit on 16 and people that don't. Right? Yeah. Like I would like to be one of people that hit on 16. Let me tell you this, though, man. I was in the Bahamas a couple of summers ago and I was playing Blackjack. And I'm sitting at last time, actually, and I'm sitting at the table.

And if I'm being honest, I am lit. And so I'm sitting there. We got this Blackjack dealer that looked like 1997 Lauren Hill. and she just kind of, yeah, yeah, yeah. But y'all who don't understand just the totality of Lauren Hill in 1997, can you imagine if Dion Sanders could hoop in the NBA too? You know what I'm saying? But anyway, yeah, right?

Like, that's what we, that's what we're talking about here. So I'm sitting there at the table, and she's just up there, and I'm looking at her. And next thing I know, this kid is maybe about 21, and he's asked the question about hitting old 16, and I was in that place. You know what I'm saying? like I was in that zone.

And I was talking to them and I said, look, here's the bottom line about it, man. As you grow up and as you become older in life, you realize that you need to set your life up in such a way to minimize the number of decisions that you have to make. If you can just make some decisions about what you're going to do in some certain situations, you need to reserve your brain power for the stuff that really requires thinking. Find as many things in your life that you can that is reasonable where if I see this, this is what I'm going to do. do and I don't give it a second thought, right? So whether or not you hit on 16, you need to do that every time because the situation is no different, right? All it comes down to is if it's sitting 16, well, I mean, it's different because if the dealer is showing, you know, whatever, right? You know, but like, you know, but all the same. It's like, you're sitting there on 16, whether you hit or not,

you need to do it every single time. I hit on 16 every single time. That's what makes sense. That's what the math says to do. However, what it really comes down to is how does it feel to you on that 16? It don't feel right to me to let that 16 sit there. If it don't feel right to you to hit on that, then you go ahead and you got to live with that. Now, you're going to be living with worse outcomes in the end, but if that feeling is, you know, by and large, man, whatever you do, you got to live with the feeling that comes with it. And if you can live with that feeling that's sitting on 16, but you can't live with that

angst by that on 17, then you go ahead and do it on 16, but you do it. every single time, right? That is not a decision. Like the decision you made on what to do there is a decision that you've already made. This isn't wavering, you know? You do it and you hold on it no matter what. And let me tell you something, Elle Boogie was looking at me, boy, El Boogie was like, you're a viddy Wides. Like, hell yeah, I am. You know what I'm saying? The doors of the church are open, and as a preacher's grandchild, I know not to get up and preach out of somebody else has already. But you feel me though? It can't be like this time. I'm a dude 16. Next time. No, no, no. That wasn't a blackjack lesson. That was a life lesson right there.

I put them on game. I put them on some game for free, boy, for free. But speaking of games, I wanted to have Michael Smith on because last week was the final week of Around the Horn. And I thought about trying to get Tony on the show, but Tony was doing so many shows that I knew that I record my show when I know he has something to do. And so it was like, no, now is, no, that's not, that wasn't the time to do that. I went on with Tony on Friday. I got on his YouTube channel, Tony Reilly, check that out and holiday him. But I wanted to talk about doing the show and I wanted to talk about it with you for a couple of reasons.

One, haven't had you all in a while. We always love this, right? That's number one. The people love it when Mike Smith make his return. But number two, I've told you this before. I don't know how much you believe me, but it's the truth. I imagine that my man Rell is probably listening to this for Marell in North Carolina. And for people who don't know this, Michael Smith is a year older than me.

He is, we graduated from high school in the same year. When I am 23, 24 years old and I ain't really got no money and I'm like, I'm just like, I just fluffed out of graduate school. I'm freelance writing. I'm scraping it together. I'm trying to make it happen. This boy Michael Smith is writing for the Boston Globe. This boy Michael Smith is all around the horn making it happen.

He's going and he's doing E-60. He's doing all these things. And rail used to hit me up. Rails was a couple years younger than me. And he would hit me up and be like, doesn't Michael Smith make you feel like you ain't really doing nothing over there? Right?

Like doesn't make you feel like you need to step your game up. And so I looked at you, not as competition, not as some nemesis, but honestly, like, as a measure of inspiration. It was like, yo, man, this cat is out here doing it. I remember when I first became friends with Bruce Feldman, one of my favorite people in the industry.

And he talked about being at the combine with you in like 04 and 05. And he was like, man, Mike Smith hit the room. He's talking to this guy. He's talking to that guy. he knows all those people like you were that dude and so to reach a point in my life where I was on like around the horn it was like man we're we are doing we have reached a level of Michael Smith right like it was it was like it was it was it was for real that thing but like that show I've had time to think about this um I think I wait wait wait if you don't mind because

I just I don't know how to probably would get away from what you just said. Can I respond to that real quick before you go? Sure. If anybody doesn't lose his thought issue, hold that thought about the show. I appreciate you saying that. And I don't know if I've ever shared this with you, but I use you as an example so many times in conversations with people

who might be struggling in their careers and where they are in their careers and going through challenges that have them kind of questioning the path that they're on. And I'm like, man, because you've told me that before, and I appreciate it then as much as I do now, hell, if not more. But like, everybody's path isn't linear. You know what I'm saying?

Like, we're sitting here right here, right now, and, like, you could take the Pepsi challenge with what you've accomplished and what you've done and what you've created and the brand that you've created and the voice that you have and the following that you had, you could take a Pepsi challenge with anybody in this game and the content that you put out with anybody. But your career didn't start off the same way as mine did.

You know what I'm saying? You know, but it's like, but you got what you were supposed to be in due time. Shout out to Celo Green. Yes. You know what I'm saying? Yes. You know, you became what you were supposed to become. Your talent was always there.

other people just had to catch up with it. You know what I mean? They just had to come to recognize it. You just needed that opportunity. And I told you this the other day, we would kind of had a little mini session about Around the Horn and I'll pass it back to you to kind of get into your thought. It's like there was around the horn, you know,

let's call it B, B, and Around the Horn, you know, and A.B, as in before Bow and After Boat. You know what I mean? Like that was an inflection point in Around the Horn when you came. on that show and everything that spawned from that, quite frankly, a whole two other shows spawned from you on the horn, you know? So I appreciate you saying that, man, but I just hope one thing that people take away from what you said about how you view me is like, you know, to paraphrase a ball from

Paul Rudd, hey, look at us. You know what I mean? And in our journeys and our paths, they might have been different, but my goodness, if you didn't still reach your destination and then some, despite how it might have looked when we was in our early 20s. But I appreciate that, but I still want you to think about this, right? I got to around the horn when I was 30, okay? That was still wild early, right?

Like, did the path I take, was it linear? No. I still got to all those places really. fast and you would still been and you had still been there hanging out around posted up hey let me show you around big dog you ain't used to not be like this

over there right like look hey man like look I appreciate you giving me the bump too but you ain't got to do that right like you you really were and continue to be in a lot of ways like as a man not just simply as a person on this is like somebody to look at like man

I got to get like this dude right and so I get on around the whole And in a lot of ways, it was like, okay, I'm here. This is cool, right? But I've had time to think. I think as I told you, I did the commencement address at Prairie View a couple weeks ago. And maybe the biggest honor of my life. For those of you who don't know, and I have to remember this, man, I've been doing this for so long now that I can't assume that people know.

Yeah. Yeah, like what the thing is that I'm talking about. And so when I was growing up, my parents were professors at Prairie View. I went to high school and the town over. In many ways, it's where I grew up. Our house addresses Houston, Common, Texas, but this is where I went to school. This is where my parents work, you know, this is like... That's home.

Yeah. And I think it's home in a way that landed with me a little bit more when I went and did this because I got this kind of interesting thing about my life that I come to realize is, like, I don't have a lot of places that feel like home. Because part of it is I got siblings, you know, I got parents, I got all of that. Houston, Texas, all of that stuff. None of that is home to them, right? Like, for them, for my parents, in particular, it's kind of like Miami was for me.

It was this place I went to go do something right fast, but we had some other stuff, you know, some other stuff to do. That's how it was for them. But I wasn't at the age where you look at things like that. this is home. So I graduate and my parents move. And so I don't make it back very much. And when you go back to Houston, I'm not out there so much or whatever. And so I was back there. And I was like, no, man, like I'm going through. I'm riding around campus for the first time. And, you know, God knows how long. I'm seeing what's new. I'm seeing what's all already been there. I'm running

into like a woman who's my mother's secretary at 1987. Right. I'm running into folks. I went to high school with teachers, all these things. And, you know, for, like, professors who happened to still be there, who knew me when I was this big and all of that stuff. And I'm like, oh, man, like, I'm getting, I'm getting a home feeling that I don't get that many places just because of the nature of what it was. And then, you know, and people being, like, legitimately happy to see me in that way, right? And welcoming you, like, it's home. And so I had, like, I really did a lot of thinking, like,

personally about, you know, it's kind of about life and what that means and like how that affects who I am and how that affects how I deal with people. And I don't think it really landed with me how few places that I really have that like feel like home. Like I've been around you when you come back to New Orleans, right? I see how you move. I see how you are with the people. I don't, I don't have a city. Like even Atlanta doesn't really feel like that to me anymore. Like I don't have a place that feels like that. And then I realized I do have a place that feels like that. And that is the horror. When I come back and do around the horn, you know, I find myself like Eric,

uh, right home sent me an email or a text rather and said something about how, how happy that staff was for me to be there and how happy it was clearly that I was there. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. And like, I don't think I'd really, really, really dulled on me until I did the last episode what I did this week. Now, you, you are, you have become Mr. Fuck Your Dress Code, right? That is a mantra that you took up for life about 12 years ago. You got that, you got that, you got that,

you got that big contract and you was like, man, fuck call us. I don't know, I don't know, I don't know what, I don't know what that is. He ain't even, he ain't even wearing no polo shirt. Mike Smith pulling up in the club. Um, T. If it requires me to dress, I can't go. I can't. Yeah, he had the game. He had the game. He completely out the game. But I decided my last episode of Horn. I had me a suit. I ain't get one of the suits I got in Vietnam, but I put that suit on. I was looking like a million bucks. I sat down in that chair and I was just like, you know, I did a horn for the first time 15 years ago. And I like look at the path that my career has taken and it's been some ups and downs, right? Like me and you both, man, we've been there.

We've been not quite there. It has not been a line. We've been, we've been, we've been, the way up. I don't think I wouldn't like way down. It's a tricky thing. I don't necessarily buying that concept. But you know, it's, it's, it's been a lot. It's been moves or whatever. And I realize every time I go back to do the horn, even after the point where I realized it was like, yeah, I kind of need to move on from this place. But this, this is still, this is still the crib, though. Like it's kind of wild that it shows that you don't do every day, right? That you might be doing with a bunch of different people, everything else. But no matter how it's gone or no matter what happened,

nah, this is, this is, this is a, it really has a home feeling. Man, that's perfect. That's perfect.

Because, you know, I did my FaceTime and it didn't help that I was following Harry, you know, who, who, had everybody in, in Shambles.

But, I mean, and I cry for a lot of reasons nowadays. I mean, I cry, you know, just about anything. but I struggle to keep it together

and it was that and I was trying to figure out why I was so emotional about it why I feel that that connection that you're talking about it's gratitude and you're absolutely right

man like that show so going to keep it with the home theme that show is really where it all started for me like I mean I started on Boston Globe, which was, you know, as good a sports page in the country when I got there and obviously had, you know, a legacy that preceded me. So I got to the Boston Globe in 2001 and I started doing a round of horn in 2003. I still have no idea why they would put a 24-year-old,

23, 24, whatever I was on television next to the people I was on television with. Like I like, you know, they said, deserves got nothing to do with it. I legitimately did not deserve. I didn't have a national reputation. I hadn't been a columnist anywhere other than the Loyola Maroon in college. You know, I didn't have a column at the Boston Globe.

I was covering the Patriots, you know, covering the NFL. You know, so I shudder to think of some of the dumb shit I said in my 20s. I think about the dumb shit I say in my 40s. Thankfully, I don't think that much of that is on YouTube. Those takes, I think, have disappeared in the

either somewhere. But the doors that it opened for me, both in ESPN, the doors to producers, the doors to executives, but the doors in the outside world, the shit that we got into, the parties that we got into from that show, the restaurants that seated us, like we was, like we was at Goodfellas, okay? Like, just follow the table, go and step right in. You know, I mean, the house that I'm in, this is the house that around the horn built, so to speak. I mean, around the horn changed my career and therefore my life. And that's what I got emotional about because through it all, that place was always somewhere I could go and I could just, I could kick my feet up. You know, like I could lay back and not feel like I had to prove anything or compete with anybody.

like I felt welcomed and appreciated and understood and celebrated by a round the horn. Just like Eric told you, they were happy to see you because there's a genuine love and affection that they have for you. It's not a transactional relationship like, or, you know, there's a lot of shows,

a lot of networks, a lot of individuals, certainly a lot of corporations, but just I'm talking specifically in our industry that make you feel like you should be appreciative of the opportunity that they're giving you. Not that you earned it, but you should be lucky

because there's a million people lined up outside that would want your job or want your position. Whereas around the horn is like, after 23 years, hey, thanks for doing the show. Thanks for coming. Thanks for being here. There's a genuine appreciation they have for what Bumani Jones or Michael Smith

or anybody else brings to their show. They make you feel good about yourself. even if you don't don't ain't on your well some of us not you but even if you don't have your best day you know and so you know i mean and then like the thing i tried to say because you know it's limited time and i you know i hadn't really prepared anything but like it's been such an institution and it's been there for people that were a part of the show or that watched the show for two decades just been there. You could count on it, just like home. You could count on or you could always go home. You could always turn on the TV at 5 o'clock Eastern on ESPN and hear that music

and watch that show. Whether you liked everybody on it, whether you liked the show, it was there for you. It was on in the bar. It was on in the gym. It was on at home. It was just on. And I'm glad you brought that up. And I'm glad you put it that way. That was brilliant and so spot on because, you know, both around the horn and you, when I went through the most difficult portion of my career, and I was just, I mean, you can call it exile, whatever you want to call it. This would have been Syrac, you know, 2018.

It's just 2019. We was in Vegas. Well, I left it. No, no, no. I'm talking about TV. I left it 19. I'm saying like 18. when I was at ESPN getting paid but wasn't working.

Right. Tony Reilly insisted that I sit in his seat and host around the horn. He was like, come on home. And you were like, yo, man, you need to do highly questionable. And then you had me do high noon with you. Like, my round the horn family, you, Tony, Eric, Eric, right home, Aaron Solomon, was like, yo, come on home. Like, damn all that bullshit that's going on with SportsCenter and ESPN.

Like, yo, you got a place that will wrap its arms around you that will celebrate you. You got a place where the secretary that worked with your mama remembers you knew you win. You got a place that knew you win. Around the horn knew me win. You know, and that feeling that I had when I did that last show was just immense gratitude for what it's done for my career, what it's done from my family, what it's taught me. I learned how to do a lot of what I know about or what I think I know about television.

I learned from around the horn. People could talk about whether it was goofy and the scoring system. But like, and the thing I appreciated about Tony, when I talked to him, I want to give him a little bit of space, but when I talk to him, I'm going to tell him this. The thing I appreciate about Tony, because I think it was Mina, FaceTime,

was just talking about Tony as a bald knower. The thing I appreciate about Tony, Tony's a hell of a writer. Tony's an incredible writer. And I think that's why he connected with all of us, yourself, Bob Ryan, Jackie McMullen, Tim Collins, writers. The show was built on writers. And that part of Tony's brain is exceptionally strong. And so he's an incredible writer. And I'm going to tell him that when I see him.

But I forgot where I was going with that. But point being, that place is just such a safe haven. You know what I mean? And I just, I'll never, I'll never not be grateful for the opportunity that they gave me and just what it allowed me to do from that. Like everything I've been able to do since then and was crazy. I'm sure you'll get this as well. For all you've done, for all you've done since then.

How many people still associate you first and foremost with around the whore? Yeah, number one. Crazy, right? Number one. Number one. All right. We're going to come right back. Got more of this.

This is Michael Smith on the right time talking about a bunch stuff. We'll be back. This show is brought to you by Perplexity. Perplexity is an AI-powered answer engine that searches the internet in real time to give you fast, high-quality answers with sources. Unlike legacy search engines that respond with the list of links, perplexity skipped straight to the answers you need, explained in easy to understand everyday language with sources and citations. That's right, Beau. We use perplexity all the time in the show. For example, we looked up this week, who are the shortest players in the NFL trying to figure out how they could be successful for the flag football Olympics in 2028. Discover fast, reliable search with perplexity today.

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So when they did the 10th anniversary special in 2012, I was the most recent edition. Like the most recent person to have been on. I wasn't the last person to start doing it before then. But I was the most recent person to be on that show. Correct me if I'm wrong. Like, was the gap between me and you? Was there somebody between? me and you? I got on in 2010. I got on in

2010. That was the first show I did. Couldn't have been seven years years ago. Nobody different. Okay. All right. Okay. Yeah. You know, what was, no, but what was different about me, though, was and it may have been, honestly, because when I think about the people who were on the show at that time, they had all been on there forever. I was the first person who was not a, who was not a print journalist to get on, right? Like, I was a dude hosting a radio show at the time. At the time, but you had done,

but you have written extensively, but at the time, right. Right, but at the time, right. But even then, no, it was digital. Like, I was, my, I, my arrival was the arrival of a different paradigm. Like the people who have been added to the show by and large since then,

like we talk about before me after me, yeah, you know, a little tricky. But in terms of where, like, what job you had before you got on there, yeah, it does change. That part absolutely changes right there. But I had a familiarity with the people on air because, you know, I've been watching them on the show for the longest. And then you had cases like Bob Ryan, for example, who I'd seen going back on the sports reporters.

And I tell people, and I imagine that something similar happened with you because you were at the Boston Globe, finding out that Bob Ryan was actually like that. Like, this is not a guy that he turns on for television. That guy that he turns on occasionally for television, that might come up at any point. anytime. Anytime. Just bring up the right subject. Absolutely. Yes.

Bring up the right subject. He will go all. Like, I forget one time he was on something on the call and he didn't raise his voice. And he just said, there are people who think whatever this think is. And those people are stupid. And just left it there. Because with Bob Ryan, whatever he said, you know he meant it. Mm-hmm.

No, absolutely. I mean, and that was. Yeah. the thing about youth, man, and being young, talk about like takes that I, you know, that probably were ridiculous back then because I didn't know shit from shit. Like, that wasn't normal.

And again, I appreciate, you know, we go back and forth and bigging up each other. Like, I appreciate you saying what you said about my career. But like, while I'm doing it, I wasn't thinking, I wasn't thinking, oh, wow, I'm, you know, 23, 24 years old on national television on ESPN. Wow, this is such a big deal. Nor was I thinking, wow, this is fast or this is early.

Like, it was all what I expected. But the other part, too, like, it's also just time and place. Like, I'm not taking anything away from myself. I'm not taking anything away from myself. I mean, you know, like I graduated college and my first job out of college was the Boston Globe. that obviously took some, that I had something to do with that. But one of the five places, I think it was five, because it was Denver, Chicago, L.A., Dallas, Boston. Yeah.

One of the five newsrooms where they put a camera was in the Boston Globe. So if I had worked for the New York Times, which owned the Boston Globe, but if I had worked for the New York Times, if I worked for the Palm Beach Post or any of the other 29 papers out of 30, a little side note, the 29 newspapers out of 30 who didn't give me an internship in college, the Boston Globe was the one that did out of the 30 I applied for. If I'd have been at any of them, any of them, I wouldn't have been on the horn. Then I was covering a team that grew exponentially in popularity overnight. I was covering the Patriots as the backup Patriots beatwriter and then some 199th pick turned a franchise around along with greatest coach at all time, and now more people are reading my shit. So since more people are reading my shit,

I'm in Paris at the World Track and Field Championships instead of training camp, which I'm the only person in history to ever be miserable in Paris with his girlfriend, future wife, at the World Track and Field Championships because I'm not at training camp. I'm pretty sure I'm the only person never feel that way. I get a phone call from, I think it was, it was Newsday. Was it a Newsday? I think so. I think it was Newsday. One of the New York papers wanted me to be their national NFL right, NFL writer. So I was going to go from backup beat writer. I was backing up Nick Carfardo, rest in peace. I was backing up Nick Carfardo at the Boston Globe as the beat writer for the Boston Globe on the Patriots, excuse me. And I was going to make the jump to national,

which was my dream job. But Ron Borgis wasn't going anywhere. at the Boston Globe. So I was going to take that job and leave the Globe to go be the national NFL writer. Don Squarer, my sports center at the time at the Boston Globes, you know, basically said, no, we want to keep you. You'll be the Patriots lead beat writer. And we'll put you on around the horn,

let you make some extra money. Oh, wow, I did not know that was how it went. That's how I got on the show. Because at the time, Bob Ryan was doing it. And think about the rotation that we had just in Boston. Like Denver was Woody. You know, L.A. was, was, was, uh, Adonde, but it was Plashie first and foremost and then Adonde. Obviously, Chicago was Marriotti every day. Um, Dallas was Collis Shaw and Blackstone.

But like, um, Boston had Bob Ryan, Jackie McMullen and Michael Holly all doing it by the time I did it. And then when I started doing it, that, that just changed everything. That just changed everything. But, but my point in saying all that is, like, you know, like, you know, like, It was not better than the next person? I mean, like, you know, it's just the way it fell in the place for me by the grace of God. Like, it just, that was just, I'm in like literally right place, right time covering the right team. Hold up. Let's talk about, let's talk about the game, though.

The game that Boston played. We're going to pay you a little extra money, but it ain't even going to be our money. Right. We're going to make you work for this extra money. Don't you love that? Yeah, but no, no, no, no. But it's not even money out of the pocket. No, it was that money was coming from ESPN.

Yeah, yeah. And so, and that was, that was it. And I, you know, like I said, didn't know anything. But I just, I, but I said all that to say, I got off on the tangent telling you how I got to the show. I took it from Brandon, though. And as we all do when we're young and you don't, you know, like you're thinking about what's the next thing?

You know, I remember if I'm being completely candid, you know, and I think you, but I think you alluded to, to this earlier in your path. It's like when you felt like, okay, it's time to leave home. It's time to leave the nest. Like I need more. There's something more for me. I'm ready for my own show.

I'm ready for this, that, and the other. So, you know, like, just like my kids, I'm like, yo, man, you know, y'all in the rush to get out of here. You don't want these adult problems. You don't want to have to pay your own bills. You want to be, you want to be, you know, a dependent as long as you can be. And I was the same way when I was 19 and 17 and 13, couldn't wait to get on my mom and daddy house.

until I did. I was like, damn, you ever notice how you go home more when you leave? Yeah. Like, man, I can't wait to go home. I want to eat. I want to wash my clothes. I want to sleep my own bed. I want to not have to worry. And I remember being that around the horn. And the other thing that people may not know about around the horn is, oh, my God, do they make the experience as smooth, eat? Oh, my God. You can, I mean, I don't mean to say you could roll out of bed and do it, But it's like they just roll out the red carpet and do so much to put you in a position to succeed and take so much pressure off of you. Whereas, you know, you've carried, I mean, you've carried shows more than I have, you've got solo shows.

Like, carrying your own show is basically like being out on your own and paying your own bills and taking care of yourself. Whereas that around the horn, you have mom and daddy house. You know what I'm saying? Like, you, you're good. You protect it because you just. just have this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, wow, you did, wow, the laundry's done. Wow. Oh, you cook for me. Oh, thank you. I just, I just walked in the door and there's food. I mean, around the horn basically makes your bed for you. Tony Reilly makes your bed. You know, like,

I mean, so that, I can't begin. And thank you for this opportunity because it's like, that 40 seconds, like, whatever it was, like, that don't do it justice, what it's meant to me in my life. And the lifestyle, that it allowed me to have. And since we're putting people up on game, man, I think, you know, I'll say this, and then I'll pass it back to you, it's hard to be rambling a little bit, but you alluded to this earlier,

and because of how frequently you and I are talking how we talk, I knew what you met, even though you went right past it. You talked about how you and I have had our ups and downs, and we've been way down, and he's like, but I don't really buy into that. And I know what you meant by that,

because talking to you, when I was going through my shit, and how I felt about it at the time or how I felt when I left ESPN really kind of like convicted me in a lot of ways. And it shifted my thinking because, you know, instead of being bitter or being upset about the way things ended, talking to you, I kind of gained this appreciation about not only that it happened, but what it did for me. And the doors that it opened and the lifestyle that it provided. Like being on ESPN, when I first left ESPN, I used to cringe when people would say, oh,

you're doing from ESPN. No, not no more. No, no, I don't work that no more. Like, you know, because I was still kind of like, you know, in my feelings or whatever. Now I've grown to, like, love that and be like, yeah, like, yeah, that's me. Like, you know, I got, got that, got that ESP a discount. So, so, so this, so this is the thing to me about, like. So thank you for helping me through that.

Like, understand, understanding that, like, my rock bottom wasn't really rock bottom in the grand scheme of things. Not that I didn't have, I wasn't entitled to my. feelings and entitled to my frustrations and it's all relative but in terms just like understanding in the grand scheme like you know that place and that show in particular changed my life so you were you were rock bottom in an ironic way right the reason that it was a bottom for you was because you had golden handcuffs right like you couldn't go do something else because they was paying you know which is an interesting spin on the concept of rock bottle. Right? You know? And so, yeah, like, like, like, like, like, like, yeah,

you know, like, I know it was. I'm going to take that in a second right now. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, like, like you, you had a thing and you was going through it. And I don't ever want to invalidate, you know, with that part. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, what that part was. But that's what I mean. Like, so for me, like, the way we do this job, I think people misunderstand stuff I feel often about. my career. Like I did an interview with somebody about game theory and they said something to me and they said, you know, and it didn't, you know, it didn't end the way that you wanted it to. I was like, what do you mean? Or it didn't go the way you wanted it to. I said, what do you mean? It went exactly the way I wanted it to do. They gave me one season and they gave me six episodes and I did the six

episodes. And then they gave me another season and it had 10 episodes and I did the 10 episodes. I did the episodes that were in front of me, right? It went, I did exactly what I wanted to do for those 16 episodes. And how you wanted to do it? Right, right. I did what I wanted to do. I did what I was asked to do, right? Things changed.

They decided they wanted to go in a different direction. They get to decide how they want to do that, but I wouldn't go be mad about it. Like, you had, you had a little more strife and beef and stuff surrounding the situation with you, but in the end, I still say, though, that being able to, do things in the first place is so much more important. Like you're not going to make, for example, you're not going to make me feel bad because my dream job lasted two seasons. You just can't.

Like that's not, that's setting myself up. Because it came through it in the first place. Right, right, right, right. Right. It came through in the first place. And then we got, we got the affirmation to doing it again. Right. Like you can't, you can't put yourself in that place. And with a round the horn, I remember a personal feeling of accomplishment because the way my career gone and I had worked at ESPN.com and then they didn't renew my contract and I was told by my superiors in that time, quote,

you're not ready for the big leagues, unquote. And hey man, I don't have, I ain't had a background to say he was wrong. Right? Like I don't know whether or not he's telling the truth, but my thought is, well, okay, well, I'm not going to be back at ESPN. That was my thought. And I crafted a career

and an outlook at a brand and all of these things that were, you ain't getting this at ESPN. That was my thought and my feeling. And so for two years and change or so, I did that. And then when around the horn came, I had made a decision. I was like, hey, man, whoever calls me at this point, you're calling me to do this thing that I do. I'm not coming in to do your thing.

You can get somebody else to do your thing. I had decided, though, that my approach on all the things they called me for was I'm going to do this thing that I do because I had the affirmation of the morning Jones. I had the affirmation of a few other things that had happened in that time period. I had the affirmation of doing local radio. I got a thing that works for me and I got people behind me who like this, right? And what I will always appreciate about a round of horn was they let me live up to that. And since they let me live up to that, they let me do the thing that I did and brought it in,

then that also meant when I went to highly questionable, like it was about being a team player, certainly, but what I did on the team was the thing that I do. And I got to do that for another four years. Yep. But it's because around the horn, whoever you happen to be, whether you be Woody Page or anybody else, Woody Page was not the only person that was allowed to have a chalkboard up there. If you could have come up with something like a chalkboard, you could have done the same thing if you wanted to. Because your square was your square.

and you got to do what you wanted to do in your square. And so like allowing me at 30 years old to show up there surrounded by these people who, by the way, I don't know if you had this situation. I misunderstood who to fuck these people were. Like I didn't realize because I'm not a newspaper guy. Yeah. I didn't understand what it meant to be a columnist at the Los Angeles Times. I didn't understand what it meant to even be a columnist at the Denver Ponce. Yeah, you know.

And so what that show did for you and also did for me, and I didn't fully grasp it. They let me trade on their credibility. The credibility that they had spent decades building was conferred upon me because they let me be around them. Bingo. Bingo. Bingo. Bingo. Absolutely.

I mean, it just validated us when we didn't have the resume to do. so on our own. But no, again, I'm going to go back to this theme, man, because this is, this is, this is, I hope the people listen to this are getting this, and I hope they can extrapolate this lesson or inspiration and apply it to whatever they might be going through or whatever they want to go through. Because it's like, and I know, I don't know that you and REL were necessarily saying when y'all are watching me, you know, 2003, whatever, like, that's, you know, that. that y'all wanted to do that necessarily, and y'all wanted to be there where I was necessarily.

But, like, I go back to the fact that you weren't there yet. And everything that you had to do between the time when you were watching around the horn until the time that you got on around the horn, molded you into this person that was going to change around the horn. I don't know, look, turn to your neighbor and say, your time is coming. I mean, I'm telling you, dog, like, this is a word.

For real, like you, would you have been great if the people at ESPN the first time around would have seen your talent and said, okay, yep, we like you. We're going to put you here, this, that, and the third, probably. But would you have been as great? You certainly wouldn't have been this dude. Like, the dude that you are, like you made something out of nothing. when nobody was giving you anything because that's what you had to do. And then they ended up wanting that, like you just said, they wanted that very thing.

They wanted that thing. Whereas if you'd have been a part of that machine, how much of that creativity would they have nurtured, would they have encouraged? Oh, no, no, no. It would have been an issue. And it's funny that you mentioned that because I realized, I left ESPN in 2023,

but I stopped doing television for ESPN. I want to call it 2021, right? And it's actually funny. I remember the last day that I did around the horn in 2021. And what it happened was I had just shot the game theory pilot. And that's when I realized, oh, I need to leave home now. You know what I mean? Like I had begun to embark upon something a little bit different.

I need more space. You know, like I just did a TV. pilot. And I'm not saying that this is how it should be, but this is just the truth. I just got through shooting something where people come and tie my shoes for me, literally. Not because I asked them to. It's somebody's job to tie my shoes. Right. And look, I knew that was crazy. I don't want to pretend as though it was like, oh, that's more like it. Yeah. But I was, I was moving to a different place, right? That's what we'll say. But I realized when I started doing game theory that there was a level of my creativity that had been stunted in the time at ESPN,

in part because you do so many things. So like I'm doing a radio show, but this is after I did highly questionable. And then after I did around the horn, I don't have time to treat this radio show like I used to treat a radio show, right? Like it was just, it was about doing. But after I left ESPN, I never forget this. And I tell people this story, my good buddy Adam Gold in Riley, North Carolina, I had done some work for them, you know, done a little fill-in type stuff or whatever at the station already. And when they didn't renew my contract at 2007, I called him to bitch him own a little bit. You know what I'm saying? I just wanted to do some complaining.

But, you know, Adam isn't exactly an empath. This is not how he's built. He's a good dude, but that ain't what he is. And what he had for me was, so you're saying you can do radio now. And so they put me on radio. And that's where I met Shannon, because Shannon was doing radio. on the weekends in North Carolina. And so we got a Saturday show and we built it out.

Right. Imaged it. We programmed it. We can't like because we do a Saturday radio show, man. Your boss don't care. Your boss don't listen to that. Your boss off work. You know what I'm saying?

Like that's the thing you learn at ESPN. Many motherfuckers ain't watching for so many of these shows. They got shit to do. Right. Like you don't call no show. Yeah. You think they got time at 4 o'clock to watch you do a fucking TV show? Right?

Like what do you like they? No, no. It doesn't work that way. They ain't watch it. They just background. Dan once told me this, to think about this with ESPN, he's like, look, I do a radio show and at 5 o'clock around the horn comes on and I see it with no volume. I've never listened.

I've watched it, but never listened to it. And it was a very, that was an important point. But when I was doing stuff at a radio station or when I was doing the morning Jones, I was it. I had to come up with it. I had to figure it out. I was doing the audience research. I was doing the engagement.

I was picking the theme song. I was myself on the computer cutting up the sound. I was making mockumentaries, calling my friends and having record parts and going on garage band and chopping them up, right? And then from there, it was like Shannon, let me give you some dough and get you to do this, right? So to your point, yes, I was in a position

and I was able. I had to learn how to get it all myself and to figure out this brand and figure out of the voice and figure out the way, and figure out the way that. I wanted to do it. And then once I'd figure out how I wanted to do it, getting the horn, where they ain't got time to be out here coaching everybody anyway. It's just like, yo, you got it or you don't. There's a lot of people that only did a handful of episodes.

That's true. That is true. And I got on and I'll never forget the day that Aaron hit me after the show and during the show in my ear. He was like, hey, Aaron, this is Aaron. You know, nobody else can hear you. But I'm going to start putting your regular email for shows. Yeah. Like he knew right away. It was like, oh, he did it. I mean, he gave me a little time. to make sure, right? Yeah. And then, and I was like, wow. And it really hit me, though, at that time, locally, my guys had treated me like this.

And even my folks in Toronto had treated me like this. But, and I think you had probably had a similar feeling in the way you dealing with him. It's like, oh, these people think I could be a star. You know, and I'd heard some people say it before. But these were the first people at that company that had ever said, no, we think you got something here. and indulged it. It was different. And when I'd gone to,

and when I'd gone too far, pull my coat to be like, hey, a little dip on your chip dear fella. You might want to chill out on this, right? Yeah. And like, they did this for all,

like it's so wild how many people that they did this for while never getting the public credit that, for example, PTI got. PTI is a different show. PTI is a different institution.

Absolutely. But these cats were right here right next year, right next year. to them and they did it for us, man. They did it for us. No, it's, and they loved keeping with the home thing, they loved all their children equally.

You know what I mean? It was like they, they, to your point about who you were sitting next to and whose credibility was conferred upon us, it's like, you know, they treated us as though we were Bob Ryan and Woody Page. Like, like, okay, so there's Tony, there's Woody Page. And, you know, there's Plashky. There's like the OGs. There's the Mount Rushmore, whatever you want to call them.

Like, but I never felt like, I never felt like I took a, I certainly didn't take a backseat, but I was never put in the backseat either. Like, I was never treated as though like, hey, you know what? You need to like, you know, defer or be quiet or, you know, like set yourself, you know, like I said, take a back seat because, you know, this is the Woody time. No, it was like, we were all equal. Everybody ate on that show. But real quick, which was.

I lose this, all I remember, not all I remember, when you said mockumentary, you want to know what the first word that popped in my mind is going to be a deep cut. Beach. Beach. Is that for everybody? Everybody bring that up to you? That was my favorite one. That was my favorite one. They have beaches. Beaches. No beaches. Beaches. They go, they get on the plane. We have beaches. That's one of those things that will forever be just... No, no, man, people will never... And I think about this with, especially now that I'm not, like, on TV regularly. Because one thing I realized I lost not being on TV as much as I used to

and Round the Horn provided this is my parents don't get to see me on a regular basis anymore. Oh, that was so special. Yeah. Yeah. Like, that's something that's something that I really lost sight of. But I thought about it also, like you mentioned in that, you know, around the horn started 15 years ago. it been so long ago that like I deal with more people now

who don't know about this than did know it. You know what I mean? Like I'm dealing now with more people. They think it was always one way, right? And so you become an, you become the establishment in effect. And it's a little tough, right? People stop rooting for it.

People don't, people don't root for the house, right? Right? And like, once you become the house, you ain't got nearly as many people that are behind you or whatever. But like when you, especially when you first start doing it around the horse, to see, I first started during social media. You didn't have social media with you. No, I did not.

Oh, man, you got people, you got people rooting for you. You know what I'm saying? People are happy to see you there. Just happy to see you. Yeah, I felt it though. Even though I didn't, you know, it wasn't, you know, social media back then. I still felt it, you know, it just like, and it was a different. So like, whether it's sports center or, you know, NFL live or, you know, outside the

lines, or any other, any of the other shows. And I know around the horn isn't everybody's cup of tea. But there was something about Around the Horn that just seemed to hit different when people saw you on that show. And I can't, maybe you could explain it, but I can't. It was like the other stuff, maybe it was just something, I don't know, just maybe because it was more traditional. Maybe it was because it was more, you know, established.

I don't know. But being around the horn just, there was a cool factor to it. maybe because it was the first you know I feel like we had a lot of fun on his and hers in ways that people hadn't before definitely in Bristol you certainly had more fun than anybody on both highly questionable and high name

but I feel like around the horn that might have been the first fun show I don't know if there was a fun show before do you remember a fun show before? No. His sports nation came after around the horn, right? Yeah, no, no, no, no. Around the horn.

I mean, first of all, and this is something I don't think people talk about nearly enough. Go turn on some cable news. You will see the impact up around the horn. You go see those four and five boxes on those screens. Around the horn took it to another place by gamifying it, which was, I think, ahead of the curve in terms of where everything was going. But no, no, no, no, no. You can go, the influence of PTI is everywhere in the rundown.

Yes. The rundown being on the screen, PTI was the first television show to do that. It completely changed how television was produced. That's something I don't think that people truly get or understand, but letting people know, oh, this thing here is coming up. Just wait a second. Then you started seeing that sort of thing everywhere, right? Around the horn, really, all those people in all those places, and for better or worse, by the way, on this part, because again, not everybody's tone in reality. It changed the game on that front. And then Woody, of course, being as he was.

Like, you had people like Chris Berman, Stuart Scott, you know, who kind of had an inflection of sorts. But the horn itself, yes, I think you're correct. It was more of a fun show. And then they get you to like highly questionable, which is its own like brand of fun show. High Newland, one of the problems was we could never quite figure out how to like intersperse that dynamic because it's not that easy to do a show where the people it should be taken and seriously while also allowing for that other part.

There's a balance between the two that is very, very, very difficult to manage. Yeah, yeah, no. But the root for a part, man, that's so true. And even just, and I'm sure you got it when you went back, not just internally, but when you went back the other day, how many people were like, oh, man, say you're on the hall. Like, you know, it's good to see you on there. It's like there's just a, there's a warmth, man.

Like, you know, there's just a, there's just a. it's just it's a special special show and um i can't imagine what they're feeling um you know because i mean to do something that long and that well and for it to end you know i guess for them abruptly i mean you and i have both been through that but you know what we were doing wasn't around the horn you know we hadn't been at it that long like that's that's that's a that's I mean, doing anything for 23 years is insane. That's insane. What I told them, but what I told them was congratulations, man.

Yeah, that's all. I can't, I can't, I can't wait for you. You got 22, 23 years. You know what I'm saying? Like, I can't end. The truth is, we work in sports. Yeah. I can't be so matter of fact about this cat's getting fired every day.

Everybody got to retire. Now it's a thing because it happened to me, huh? Right? Like, look, all the bucks are defeated. That's what I'm saying. All the bumps and downs and everything I've had in these jobs, you ain't heard me come on here and complain about none of them because I don't, this happens to these other dudes.

Like, this is what, sometimes we'd say they need to be fired, right? Sometimes we advocate the idea. So they got, I told Tony, congratulations, man, because nobody, when I'm done doing this job, they're not going to do an episode or no podcast that's going to sound like this. I ain't had that impact on that many people. I haven't done the things for people. that they have done. And they get to say that.

I'm sorry. And they got to go out like, geez. The same off of farewell. They got to say goodbye because that is the thing that people do not understand about this, especially if you worked in radio. Your last day, that shit looked like hard knocks. They put their arm around you. They walk you into office. Right. Might be Friday. Might be Monday. They like to do it on a Monday because then you don't see it coming. Right. It don't matter your ratings can be good whatever it is. They just walk you to the side and they give you that old yellow

dog and you know, this is how it goes. Bring your playbook. Yo, that's what I'm saying. So for them, I don't want to invalidate any feelings they have about the end of it, but the bottom line is it was going to end at some point and you wouldn't go like it unless you were the one that decided that it was going in, right? Like that's just how

all of these things go. But I congratulate them for the impact that they managed to have. And what are they going to do today? That is a question that they have not had to come up with an answer for and forever. And you know what they might do today? They might realize that they were ready to start whatever the thing was that was coming next. Right. Like there's there's a freedom. There's a time. Everybody's managed to make a decent bit of change in the course of doing this. I am inclined to think more about the behind

the scenes people and where they're going to wind up going and what they're going to figure out. But no, man, everybody, I think everybody that got to do this show got to do it. and feel like winners in the end. Like all of us were better off. We were all better off for doing this show. And I give credit to the OGs on this because they learn how to do television with everybody watching. And I don't think that people understand this.

This was not a good show when it started by the admission of everybody who worked on it. But those guys spent years in front of America, the vulnerability. Getting better at being himself. them to do that. And they got better. So like, for example, this is something I don't know him, you've met him, but something that people need to understand. I don't care how you felt about Jay Marriotti. Jay Marriotti was nails on television. Jay got on there and did that show. You don't want to point out. You ain't never seen him stammer. You ain't never seen him stutter. I've never seen him not have something to say. Like, y'all are very similar in that regard.

I've never seen him not have something to say about a subject. I've never seen him not go hard about it. So you call him nails. His nickname used to be the hammer. That motherfucker had one speed. And he was coming with it every fucking subject. Some of us were, and I would say, I'm going to get flowers to Collar Show, too. Collar Show's probably got as much, the widest range as anybody. But, like, some of us will be like, hockey?

I don't know about hockey. You know what I mean? I might just kind of lay out a little bit. You know, just like, I'm going to just throw a stat out there. I'll just kind of chill. Everything. It didn't matter what the subject was Mariety was bringing. But you're right.

It was a bunch of newspaper people that this show also, not only did a PTI change the game in terms of, change the game in terms of the rundown, but PTI and Around the Horn put writers on TV, because it was really the sports reporters and you really didn't see writers as omnipresent and ubiquitous on television as you did after PTI and around the horn.

Because back in my day, there was, like, there was this competitiveness and this disdain that writers held for television people, especially on beats. Because the TV people, you know, they make up and they, you know, their fancy suits, and they're all glamorous, and they swoop in and they ask the stupid-ass questions in the press conference and then, you know, see them until next Wednesday, you know, and it's like, oh, they're not the real journalists. They just, they're not in the, they just take it what we write and using it for their little packages for two, three minutes on evening news or whatever. Like, there was just this little print had this hearty-taughty, you know, holier than thou viewpoint of television, whereas television people wasn't trying to put people who had faces, not even for radio on television, that didn't understand the mechanics of television, that didn't have a presence for television. Like some people, you talked about it, no disrespect. Some people ain't cut out to cut. Not everybody can go from writing to television. And ain't for everybody.

Like, everybody doesn't have that ability to present well on television just because you're a good writer. So to your point, like, they put people on, now, don't get me wrong. Jackie had done a lot of television. Bob had done a lot of television and others had done a lot of television.

But they did television as reporters, not as come on and be a personality that volunteer to be. purposes carries a show. Come and just be you. We want you. Not just your information. We want you. And we want you every day and we're going to sell you as the stars of the show. Like when you're a print journalist, like it for the longest time it was taboo to use the word I. You are never the story. Like we're all trained at a young age that we're not the story. That's why we got a byline. You know what I mean? Even when we're columnists, it should be about the subject that we're

covering. Now you're asking print journalists to be something that they're not. used to be in. Otherwise, they'd probably go into television if they could. You know, like Michael, Michael Wilburne and Tony Kornheiser, they're print journalists for a reason, you know, and so now they're on television. And that also changed the game because now you see writers on television. It's not even, it's not even a thing anymore. It's part of television. Or just transitioning full time into television because of that writing background, that writing skill set. So now that we change our lives and our careers and the people that did the show. But you're absolutely right, it helped change the industry.

Like sports talk television would not be what it is today without Around the Horn. And that legacy is really all that matters. How would you watch as much television as I do if now more. Like you can't have a great TV show without a conversation about the end. And Around the Horn went out as well as anybody. I mean, that was that last stretch of shows, that last show, right, that was incredible. That was incredible. So, proxative.

I put it like this. That show lasted long enough that there are, I feel like, three full generations of pounds, right? I think I include you in Gen 1. I believe that I am kind of the beginning of Gen 2. And I think that when you get around like right before COVID or so, you get kind of a Gen 3. because I was on there with a bunch of people I had never done the show with and was by far the oldest.

Was that not weird? Me too. Yo, I've never been the oldest anywhere. I was the oldest. You said that about you, but I was looking around like, yeah, this ain't my room, dog. It's very nice. Hello, fellow kids. Yeah, man, you've grown up. Y'all have grown up. Yes.

Yes. I'm not sitting at the kids table no more. Now I'm sitting at the grown folks table. Now I'm saying grace. Hell, man, I used to watch you in middle school. I'm like, middle school, huh? Right. Middle school.

It's crazy to be on, it's crazy to be on the show with you. I'm like, oh, like, we are now the people. We're doing for people or we did for people what the people that preceded us did for us. Crazy. Like, they got people that grew up. And I mean, like, this.

is something that, you know, I think both of us have embraced. We might not, you know, pointed out all the time. But I mean, like, it's not lost on either of us in particular what it, what we meant to be that look like us. Like, around the horn was by far the most diverse show on ESPN. By far. Around the horn was putting people of certain groups on before anybody was. Before anybody was around, around the horn was on. You know, and like you said, they didn't, you didn't necessarily have to check certain boxes on your resume, put them to feel like you were worthy of around the horn. You'd have to work a certain place when they feel like you're worthy of around the horn.

Like how many young black people watched us in middle school or in high school and said, yo, I could do that or I want to do that, you know? Just like us watching Stuart Scott or or Ralph Wiley, you know what I'm saying? So yeah, man. I will, I will, I will admit, before we go. I prefer when they look at me and say, I want to do that rather than I can do that. Because I know the people that I looked at doing television

that made me say, I can do that. And brother, it was not a compliment. It was, if I looked at you, it was like, shit,

I can do that. Yeah, as I'm saying, it's just like, hey, let anybody on TV. If you see me, I'm like,

wow, that inspires me to get my game up and do the same thing. All right, baby, I feel you. You look at me and be like, I can do that. My response is, are you sure? Yeah.

By all means. Like what you try to say about your boy? Yeah. By all means, man. Hey, man. Michael Smith, my brother, I love you, man. Love you too, man. I appreciate you.

You still doing it. You are still that dude, man. You still that dude. And I don't care, you know, I don't care what they say about you. They're saying anything? I don't look, they're saying anything. I don't think they said anything. Hey, man.

But no, thank you, man. I appreciate that. Thank you. No problem, bad. I would talk. This is like coming on. I'm sorry. This is like coming on for me.

Honestly, like I don't do a lot of this. I don't do a lot of much of anything for a lot of reasons nowadays. But like the right time, always got time for the right time. And then it's like coming home talking to my brother, man. That's all it is. Like we just, we're kicking it at the kitchen table. That's it. Whenever you want to fall through, brother, the door is always open.

Yes, sir. Appreciate you, bro. All right, man. No problem, man. And ladies and gentlemen, thanks so much for joining us here on the right time. We do this three times a week. Ryan Brumley handled everything behind the scenes. Thank you, sir.

Remember, follow the right time. Subscribe, like, rate us, review us, give us five stars. You only give us four stars. I'm inclined to believe you are a hater. We'll talk to you guys in a couple of days. Take it easy.