Jason McIntyre compared himself to Jets quarterback Zach Wilson on Friday’s The Herd, explaining that second chances are vital in life. McIntyre said he learned that early in his time as a sports media personality.
“The thing that I don’t like, and that’s because of a personal experience, is you get your shot in the limelight, you get your chance, and then it doesn’t go well,” McIntyre said. “And everybody thinks ‘this guy’s a bust.'”
“It happened to me. I came out here to do TV, I was on a show with a knucklehead, and I got run off. And I thought, ‘it’s over for me.'”
“You get your shot in the limelight, and then it doesn’t go well and everyone thinks, ‘this guy’s a bust.’”
Jason McIntyre can relate to Jets QB Zach Wilson due to his experience in the sports media business pic.twitter.com/2rAMv0eBv1
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) September 29, 2023
McIntyre founded The Big Lead in 2006 and sold it to Gannett in 2010. He joined Fox Sports 1 in 2016, where he was initially on Speak for Yourself with Colin Cowherd and Jason Whitlock (but not Clay Travis, other than in rehearsals), hosted a radio show, and wrote sports and gambling articles for Fox’s website.
McIntyre continued doing the radio show even after leaving SFY. He also did a Straight Fire podcast for Fox. And McIntyre continued contributing to Fox’s talk shows.
But it’s not hard to read between the lines of who McIntyre is calling out here. Whitlock is a persona non grata across sports media these days. He left ESPN, Fox and Outkick on bad terms. He currently hosts a show for the Glenn Beck-founded Blaze Media.
Clearly, McIntyre was not fully left for dead professionally when SFY changed its lineup in 2018, with Marcellus Wiley taking Cowherd’s place. But anchoring a big talk show is a massive break, and McIntyre lost that shot before joining The Herd as a cohost last year.
So McIntyre believes all athletes, even beleaguered quarterbacks like Wilson, deserve another opportunity like he got.
“I get my chance here, and you know things are going pretty good,” McIntyre told Cowherd. “I feel like everybody deserves a second chance.”
[The Herd]
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.