10 months ago, ESPN basketball analyst Monica McNutt took First Take host Stephen A. Smith to task. She confronted the ESPN megastar about his show’s historical lack of women’s sports coverage.
Smith was stunned, and it made for quite a viral moment. It was a rare instance of Stephen A. Smith at a loss for words on his very own show.
Stephen A. Smith: “Who talks about the WNBA, who talks about women, who talks about women’s sports more than First Take?”
Monica McNutt: “Stephen A., respectfully, with your platform, you could have been doing this three years ago if you wanted to.”
Stephen A.: “Wow.” pic.twitter.com/szQXOPQ3h4
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) June 3, 2024
This weekend, speaking at an event organized by Front Office Sports, McNutt addressed her viral moment.
“This is layered for me because the existence of women at large, outside of sport, is just a challenge. That is the nature of our experience and our society today. So, am I sensitive to word choices and descriptions about certain women? Yes. Does that mean that I cannot talk about basketball and acknowledge how we are all moving this thing forward together? No. But there is a sensitivity for me when it comes to women’s sports that I don’t necessarily have around men’s sports, and I am, in real-time, learning how to navigate that.”
It’s more than fair for McNutt, who has built much of her career around the coverage of women’s sports, to be keenly aware of just how much exposure those sports have gotten on sports media’s largest platforms. But her introspection here is interesting. It seems that she’s aware that there’s a balance between acknowledging the dearth of women’s sports coverage on mainstream platforms and stopping short of antagonizing those mainstream platforms, like what some would suggest happened on First Take.
As women’s sports continue to grow, exposure on popular platforms will become less and less of an issue, and more focus will be spent on growing the tent. Monica McNutt, better than most, seems to understand this.
About Drew Lerner
Drew Lerner is a staff writer for Awful Announcing and an aspiring cable subscriber. He previously covered sports media for Sports Media Watch. Future beat writer for the Oasis reunion tour.