When FS1’s First Things First earned its first Sports Emmy nomination for best daily studio show this past week, host Nick Wright felt immense pride for not only the show getting recognition but also his own personal growth.
FTF is up against ESPN’s NFL Live, NBA Today, and SportsCenter as well as The Pat McAfee Show. And Wright feels pride that his own development as a host and a person has helped push the show toward this vaunted place in the industry, as he explained in an episode of his What’s Wright podcast.
When Wright first arrived on the national scene, he gained a reputation for getting under the skin of his former athlete debate partners — and the audience as well.
“I didn’t know what I was doing. I thought my job was every day, to prove to the audience how smart I was,” Wright explained.
“I thought my job was, every day, to just be armed with all of the data, all of the facts, all of the information, to win any potential debate that popped up while also weighing that with the fact that my partner and the person fronting the show, Cris Carter … he was not really trying to argue.”
Carter later left the show following a reported dispute with FS1 management. The show did not have a replacement cohost until 2020, when former ESPN producer Kevin Wildes joined.
“It certainly allowed me to put my stamp on it,” Wright said of that period. “Almost by default, a show that was never supposed to be my show became my show.”
Then, when Kobe Bryant passed away ahead of Super Bowl week in 2020, Wright requested that Chris Broussard join the show for the full three hours the following day. That led to Broussard taking on an even larger role on the show going forward, ultimately giving Wright the confidence to push for Broussard to join as a full-time host.
Toward the end of the COVID-19 shutdowns, Wright said he received word that FTF was likely to be canceled. He began making plans to move to Los Angeles and work as a fill-in commentator on FS1’s West Coast programming.
Then, suddenly, the network hired former NFL receiver Brandon Marshall as a cohost alongside Wildes and anchor Jenna Wolfe. This setup lasted just one year before Marshall departed.
That is when Wright put his reputation on the line to advocate for a move that he believes set the show on course for an Emmy and the popularity it enjoys today.
“I knew in my absolute core that the best person for the show, the guy who worked the hardest, had the best relationship, we had the best chemistry with, and who had the best disposition and was the most reliable was Brou,” Wright explained.
“And I also knew that I had probably one time I could play the card of, ‘Let’s not do what you’re suggesting, trust me.’ And I really debated whether or not that was even smart to do, because if you do what your bosses or whatever are suggesting and you register, ‘I don’t know if it’s the best idea, but yeah, I’ll go with it,’ and then it doesn’t work or something happens, that’s not as much on you. But if you say, ‘I know this is right and I’ll take the hit if I’m wrong,’ if it doesn’t work, that is on you.”
While FS1 execs worried that Broussard was just a basketball commentator given his past as an NBA insider at ESPN, Wright knew from Broussard’s radio show that he could capably opine on any sport. Still, Wright said, he was worried about going down with a ship he was steering rather than just going with management’s plans as he had with Marshall.
But by that point, four years into the show’s history, he had learned to take himself a little less seriously — and to value chemistry.
“I also knew from my own history … I am such an annoying person to argue with that there is something in my experience for former athletes, particularly former football players that if every single day they gotta argue with me, something in their brain activates a few months in and they’re like, ‘Man I used to put guys like him in the damn locker … shut up,'” Wright said.
“So I just really didn’t think going with another former athlete was going to work.”
Even after agreeing to install Broussard as a full-time cohost, Wright said FS1 still wanted to hire a former NFL star as a full-time fourth host. Wright, along with Wildes, put their necks out to try it their way.
“I laid down in traffic on it and said, ‘Let us have this shot.’ And that was August of 2022,” Wright said. “And I believe by August of 2023, me, Wildes and Brou along with Coach and Greg and the amazing folks who work on the show behind the scenes, have the best show on sports TV. And that’s why being nominated for that award was so gratifying.”
Wright said he hopes the growth he and FTF exhibited over those six years can help young broadcasters feel more comfortable advocating for themselves when the moment is right.
“If you feel ownership over something and in your core you know what the right call is, be willing to put some stakes to it,” he said. “Going along to get along can be smart in certain instances. Accumulating good coworker, good colleague, not-being-a-pain-in-the-a** chips can be super valuable. Because I had never once played a let-me-have-this-one card … and it’s the greatest thing that ever happened to the show. Brou is perfect.”
Over the past year, FTF has been expanded to three hours and has posted record viewership. It is the only show besides The Herd to survive the sweeping FS1 cutbacks last summer.
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.