By this point, the idea of sports media personalities leaning into their individual fandoms is nothing new. That is, unless you’re Jeff Pearlman.
Taking to X on Wednesday night, the author expressed outrage that Stephen A. Smith was serving as the lead analyst of ABC’s broadcast of the NBA Draft, just hours after openly celebrating his beloved New York Knicks’ acquisition of Mikal Bridges . Drawing attention to the seemingly conflicting nature of the two roles, the Showtime author expressed what he believes it says about the state of sports journalism.
“Something has snapped in sports coverage. Absolutely snapped,” Pearlman wrote. “Yesterday I saw a video of @stephenasmith celebrating a Knicks trade. Like, the unbridled giddiness of a child. And today he covered the draft as an analyst. I don’t understand when/how @ESPN became accepting of this.”
Whether sports fandom has a place in sports media is a topic for another day and certainly a subject worth exploring (as we did last month ).
On the one hand, journalism, by definition, is supposed to be objective — a notion the very idea of sports fandom runs counter to. On the other, it’s also fair to wonder how unbiased people are truly capable of being, whether it’s better to make people aware of such biases or try to keep them hidden, and whether we need our sports commentators to be held to the same standard as those covering international relations.
Like I said, a story for another day.
But while how biased you want your sports personalities to be is largely a matter of personal opinion, what isn’t up for debate is that this is nothing new.
Bill Simmons opened the door as “the Boston Sports Guy” more than 20 years ago and several mainstream sports personalities — from anchors to analysts an between — have made habits of leaning into their loyalties ever since. Off the top of my head, I can tell you that Michael Wilbon is a Chicago sports fan, Mina Kimes roots for the Seattle Seahawks, Mike Greenberg lives and dies with the New York Jets and Nick Wright adores the Chiefs. Elle Duncan hosted the NBA Draft Lottery and openly celebrated when her hometwon Atlanta Hawks landed the No. 1 pick , a moment reminiscent of Simmons celebrating the Celtics selecting James Young (LOL) while on ESPN’s panel for the 2014 NBA Draft.
What any of this says about the state of sports media is a worthy conversation, but it’s unclear why Pearlman saw Smith’s duality on Wednesday as so significant. At this point, it would have been shocking if he didn’t openly celebrate the Knicks’ blockbuster trade before performing his duties at the draft, where his allegiances remained on full display .
[ Jeff Pearlman on X ]
The post Jeff Pearlman questions how Stephen A. Smith can be an NBA analyst and a fan appeared first on Awful Announcing .
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