ESPN exec wants viewers educated on ‘clear lines’ between Stephen A. Smith’s sports and politics shows

ESPN president of content Burke Magnus is thrilled to pay Stephen A. Smith to be the face of the network, at least, when he is on the network’s own platforms. But when he’s off doing his own thing and weighing in on topics he wants to talk about? That’s now SiriusXM’s Stephen A. Smith.

ESPN’s $100 million man recently launched two shows on the satellite radio platform, an afternoon sports show on Mad Dog Sports Radio, and an evening news and politics show on SiriusXM’s POTUS channel. Add in his own YouTube show, and it’s surprising Stephen A. has any vocal chords left to spare by the time his day is over.

The new shows are a result of his fresh contract with ESPN that allows him to work with other platforms. And for Magnus, that deal is working exactly as intended. Instead of tackling the day’s most controversial issues as “ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith” the star opinionist is simply turning into “Stephen A. Smith.” Magnus suggests that lets viewers disassociate the ESPN brand from Smith’s political commentary, which he explained on a recent episode of the Sports Media with Richard Deitsch podcast.

“I like the new arrangement better because at least it draws clear lines between what he’s doing for us, and what he’s doing outside of us,” Magnus said. “And what I mean by that is, in the final years of his [previous] deal, because of his interests, he would show up on a news program — you name the network, he was all over the place — and at that point, the only way they could ever refer to him, not that this completely eliminates confusion in the new world, but it was ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith, right? So, at least going forward, we have in our box exactly what he does for us, which is, he hosts First Take 240 days a year, or some number around there. And he’ll do a handful of other events over the year and other shows for us over the year. That’s what he does for us. And outside of that he’ll do his YouTube show, he’ll do his radio show on Sirius that’s sports, he’ll do his radio show on Sirius that’s politics.

“So, I like the fact that it’s compartmentalized now where he’s free to explore those areas and when he comes back to ESPN, he knows what we want from him. And nobody’s better at that, frankly. … If it ever gets sticky in terms of what he might say or do outside of ESPN, at least we can educate people that off our platform, it’s a different profile,” the ESPN exec concluded.

While Magnus is right in the sense that Stephen A. Smith himself is likely saving his political ramblings for non-ESPN platforms, his outlook on how the average viewer sees Smith is likely a bit too optimistic. Stephen A. Smith is the face of ESPN. Like it or not, people are going to associate him with the network, regardless of what platform he’s speaking on. And when you pay an individual $100 million, that’s the type of recognition that should be expected. Nobody is making a distinction between where and when Stephen A. says something. He represents ESPN across whatever platforms he appears on, and to think otherwise is a bit naïve.

That doesn’t mean the arrangement of the new deal isn’t a positive for ESPN. To be sure, the network would much prefer Smith keep his politics to his politics show and focus on sports while on ESPN’s airwaves. But when the First Take star inevitably says something provocative on his political show, and people take notice, he’ll still be seen as “ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith,” not “SiriusXM’s Stephen A. Smith.” And that’s something the Worldwide Leader will simply have to live with.