Nick Wright is more than happy at First Things First.
On the Awful Announcing podcast, Wright addressed the rumors about replacing Shannon Sharpe on Undisputed alongside Skip Bayles. He said he appreciated being asked because many people, both inside and outside the sports media industry, are sure they know a lot about something they don’t know anything about.
“Which is this idea that Skip and I have — like I was banned after a certain performance,” he tells host Brandon Contes. “It’s just totally made up out of whole cloth. And in fact, that viral clip where it says at the end — some people have seen, some people haven’t — ‘Nick Wright’s first and (last time on Undisputed)’ I was on Undisputed multiple times after that. Like, it’s just made-up nonsense, just not true…
“I want to be very clear, and I don’t want to be mis-aggregated, so I want to be very, very clear with my words here. There is not another show I would rather be doing. And everyone that works for me knows that…There isn’t a show that I would look at as a promotion. Like, I am doing the exact show that I want to do. So, this idea that. ‘Oh, that’s the next step.’ That’s not how I view it.”
Wright said this isn’t a knock on anyone or any show; it’s just a testament to his feelings about what he’s doing.
“If I had gone to the bosses (at Fox Sports) and said, ‘I want a shot at that job,’ do I think I would’ve gotten a very fair shot at it? Absolutely. I do think that,” added Wright. “And people are gonna have a hard time believing this, but if they listen to the whole pod, I hope they understand how honest and transparent I’m being. It never crossed my mind. And that is, again, it’s only because of how happy and satisfied I am with what I’m currently doing.”
That’s not to say bigger shows don’t exist, Wright continued. “There are certainly shows that are bigger shows than other shows. I just don’t think that’s based on your time slot. I think that for daily sports television, again, that can be different in other industries, so to speak, but I just think it’s based on the show itself.”
Contes chimed in, acknowledging that the potential for LeBron James discourse and debates with Bayless would certainly be a draw for many.
“The LeBron thing is one of the biggest reasons,” Wright said. “Which makes sense, I get it. And by the way, I do love to argue. I think I would’ve really enjoyed doing that, but I just love doing what I’m doing. And there are these other factors that people don’t even think about. Let’s just say that I didn’t feel any of the ways I feel about First Things First. There’s the factor that my wife owns a women’s boutique 10 blocks from our house in Harlem.
“My daughter goes to school here. There’s this whole idea of ‘Oh yeah, it’s very simple; just go ahead.’ There’s just a lot of things about the real human beings involved that are less about, ‘Oh, we look at that as the Cadillac,’ it’s just not how actual things work in my experience.”
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