Stephen A Smith Credit: First Take on ESPN
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While athletes across the NFL, NBA and MLB have embraced new roles within media over the past several years, a fascinating trend has emerged. Despite those athletes carrying a louder voice than ever before and controlling the messaging around their careers, many still present the media space as an enemy. And as a veteran in that very space, ESPN’s Stephen A Smith has had enough of that “hypocrisy.”

Discussing recent comments from Dallas Cowboys edge rusher Micah Parsons and Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James on Friday’s First Take, Smith made it clear to any athlete taking up the media hustle: They can’t have it both ways.

Too often, Smith said, athletes generalize “and put an umbrella over an entire industry” as if they are still outside of that industry.

“And oh by the way, you have maximized (the media), you have exploited it,” Smith said. “Admit it and own it. Stop acting like you’re separate and apart from it.”

Throughout November, Parsons responded to criticism toward the Cowboys from ESPN’s Damien Woody and Rex Ryan on his podcast, The Edge. As the Cowboys’ season verged toward collapse, Parsons took both analysts to task about their ulterior motives. Woody was just spewing “B.S.” and breaking the code of former players, Parsons said. Ryan was just jealous because he wanted to coach in Dallas.

This week, James announced a break from social media. The four-time NBA champion cited a post from sports mogul Rich Kleiman, which complained that national media contributes to “hate and negativity” by giving critical takes about athletes and their teams.

More to the point on First Take, Smith called out the ruse within arguments like these from athletes on their own shows.

“What’s up with they hypocrisy? There’s evidence, factual evidence, that shows you are guilty of what you’re accusing the national media of being guilty of,” Smith said. “I’m not going to let somebody denigrate the industry acting like they didn’t contribute to it themselves.”

Smith sees that despite starting podcasts like Parsons or full media companies like James, athletes still paint themselves as the victim of media narratives. They still attack the industry’s approach and motives while embracing them.

Often, athlete-hosted shows are merely a platform to attack the character or tone of a critic rather than engaging with those critics in good faith. What was once coined “new media” by Draymond Green tends to look a lot like old media much of the time.

“The first order of business should be, is it true what they said? Not, ‘nah, they hatin’,'” Smith said. “And you have people outside of the media, per se, that try to get you to feel that way about the media, absolving themselves when they’re every bit as culpable and guilty of the accusations that they throw out there about other people.”

Parsons’ comments throughout this Dallas season certainly fit the trend Smith describes. Rather than responding to the difficult opinions thrown at him by Woody or Ryan, Parsons resorted to pettiness.

A similar example came from James earlier this year on his podcast Mind the Game with now-Lakers coach JJ Redick. In a spring episode, James responded to critics of WNBA phenom Caitlin Clark and his son, Bronny James, for “doing whatever they can” to make sure both failed.

Did James confront the accusations of nepotism toward his son, or that some believe going to the Lakers at age 19 was bad for Bronny’s career? No. Did James address the broader context around Clark’s arrival in the WNBA and why players, coaches and media were skeptical of her? Nope.

Just a simple message: The haters are trying to bring them down.

James and Parsons are just the two examples First Take addressed in this conversation. The pattern Smith highlighted is much bigger than those two.

All across athlete-driven media, self-defense and argument win out over real discussion. When Green returned from a highly publicized suspension last November placed on him by the NBA, he disappeared from his podcast for weeks. When he returned, he claimed he had considered retirement and discussed his experience in therapy.

We’ve still never really heard from Green about punching Jordan Poole or his vantage point as a pot-stirrer for the Warriors dynasty.

That’s all fine. These athletes aren’t obligated to scour the depths of their souls for the audience’s benefit.

But as Smith points out, if they aren’t going to, it makes it that much harder for athletes to set themselves apart as outsiders and morality police in media. In fact, outside of the looser format of digital media, many shows hosted by athletes don’t look or feel all that different from First Take or Pardon the Interruption or local radio.

It turns out making good, honest sports content may require more creativity and humility than some athletes want to give.

[First Take on ESPN]

About Brendon Kleen

Brendon is a Media Commentary staff writer at Awful Announcing. He has also covered basketball and sports business at Front Office Sports, SB Nation, Uproxx and more.

View all posts by Brendon Kleen