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ESPN Reportedly Makes Stephen A. Smith Huge Contract Offer, But Will It Be Enough?

With one year left on his contract, the sports pundit is seeking a monster payday.

Jimmy Traina

Stephen A. Smith in 2021.
Stephen A. Smith in 2021. / Tori Lynn Schneider / USA TODAY NETWORK

1. Puck’s John Ourand reported on Thursday that ESPN has made Stephen A. Smith a contract offer.

The First Take host has one year left on his current deal and is seeking a monster payday.

Ourand says that ESPN’s first offer is for $18 million per year for five years.

According to reporter and journalist James Andrew Miller, who has long had all the information on ESPN, $18 million won’t get the job done.

Here’s what Miller said on SI Media With Jimmy Traina just last week:

“Stephen A.’s deal is coming up. In fact, I think there have been preliminary talks already that have started. He’s looking for a big, big number. And I also feel, given the content world, he doesn’t even have to have another offer from one entity for that big number. I think what ESPN is up against is the possibility that [William Morris Endeavor] could go out and create an architecture where Stephen A. has a podcast, a this, a deal with this, a deal with that, whatever, and at the end of the day, it’s $20 million a year.”

I then asked Miller if there was any chance Smith wouldn’t return to ESPN.

“To tell you the truth, at this point, I’m not sure because I do believe there are enough possibilities that Stephen A. can get outside of ESPN and even outside an exclusive deal with another network that could make him very happy and very rich,” says Miller.

Is there a number that Miller thinks doesn’t make sense for ESPN to go to for Smith?

“Maybe that number is $20 million a year, although I don’t have that confirmed,” Miller says.

That would clearly be a problem because, according to Ourand, Smith is seeking $25 million per year.

So now it seems like the negotiations game will come down to whether ESPN will increase its offer to Smith by a few million and whether Smith will drop his desire for $25 million by a few million.

2. The latest SI Media With Jimmy Traina dropped Thursday and it’s the 500th episode of the podcast. The show features three segments.

First up is an interview with Derek Jeter, who discusses going into broadcasting, why he has no interest in doing games, the scariest moment of his career, what John Sterling meant to him, joining social media, and much more.

Following Jeter, Richard Deitsch, who started the SI Media Podcast, joins me for a conversation about the world of podcasting and the latest sports media news.

The episode closes with my weekly “Traina Thoughts featuring Sal Licata from WFAN and SNY. This week’s topics include Sal being embroiled in a controversy with Grimace, Bill Belichick allegedly dating a 24-year-old, Twitter no longer making "likes" public and more.

You can listen to the SI Media With Jimmy Traina below or on Apple and Spotify.

You can also watch SI Media With Jimmy Traina on Sports Illustrated‘s YouTube channel.

3. For Thursday night’s Cardinals-Giants game from Rickwood Field, the oldest professional ballpark in the United States, Fox aired a half inning in black and white and gave the broadcast the same look and feel of a game from 1954. And it was pretty cool.

4. This was well done by Celtics center Al Horford, who showed up to the team’s championship parade on Friday wearing a T-shirt that honored Tom Brady’s famously drunken performance at the Bucs' Super Bowl parade in 2021.

5. Jayson Tatum says he feels bad if he cost you any parlays during the NBA playoffs.

6. From the that-escalated-quickly department, this was a funny one-two punch.

7. RANDOM VIDEO OF THE DAY: Actor Donald Sutherland passed away Thursday, so the remembrances were pouring in across social media. This 1999 interview with Sutherland and Rosie O’Donnell goes in a direction you’d never expect.

Be sure to catch up on past editions of Traina Thoughts and check out the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast hosted by Jimmy Traina on Apple, Spotify or Google. You can also follow Jimmy on Twitter and Instagram.

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Jimmy Traina
JIMMY TRAINA

Jimmy Traina is a staff writer and podcast host for Sports Illustrated. A 20-year veteran in the industry, he’s been covering the sports media landscape for seven years and writes a daily column, Traina Thoughts. Traina has hosted the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast since 2018, a show known for interviews with some of the most important and powerful people in sports media. He also was the creator and writer of SI’s Hot Clicks feature from 2007 to '13.

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