‘Stephen A. Smith has done so much to empower me’ admits ESPN star Chiney Ogwumike after her incredible rise

CHINEY Ogwumike has quickly become one of ESPN’s fastest-rising stars.

The former WNBA All-Star, 32, made her ESPN debut in 2017, while a member of the Connecticut Sun.

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Ogwumike joined the network full-time a year later, all while also playing for the Sun.

A regular on SportsCenter and NBA Today, the former WNBA Rookie of the Year is also a frequent guest analyst on First Take .

Starring alongside hosts Molly Qerim and Stephen A. Smith , who is also an executive producer for the show, Ogwumike recently heaped praise on Smith for his impact on her broadcasting career.

“Stephen A. is one of my closest mentors to this day,” she told the Awful Announcing podcast.

“He’s done so much to empower me in his space and internally at ESPN.”

Barring a brief return for a handful of shows, Smith has recently been absent from the popular sports talk show as he enjoys a well-earned break.

However, Ogwumike added that she believes the show is stronger when Smith is on-air.

“I think it’s always better when he’s there just because you know what to expect,” she explained.

“The first year or so, I was like, ‘Dang, I wanna take it to him, how do I get to him? How do I get under his skin?’

“Then I figured it out. Whenever you have a good point, he starts deflecting and throwing some other things… you gotta bring it around.”

But, of course, nobody’s perfect, and the same applies to Smith.

Ogwimuke was quizzed on an on-air spat between Smith and Monica McNutt in which she criticized him for his prior lack of coverage of the WNBA.

“I absolutely think Stephen A. could have embraced a little bit more of what the trajectory was building to ahead of time, but it’s not just him,” she replied .

“It was the entire landscape…I think it’s a little bit unfair to say, ‘Oh, Stephen A. could have been doing it,’ because it is true he could have, but so could have everyone else.”

First Take viewing figures

First Take went from strength to strength under the guidance of Stephen A. Smith and Molly Qerim last year.

The weekday ESPN debate show averaged 496,000 viewers in 2023 – making it the most-watched year in program history.

Its December average of 611,000 was a 24% year-on-year increase compared to 2022.

The show also reported more than 250 million views on YouTube.

First Take was helped by the addition of Shannon Sharpe alongside Smith and Qerim after he left Fox Sports’ Undisputed.

Ogwumike also credited Smith for bringing her in to begin with, helping to give her the platform to discuss the WNBA.

“When I started off at ESPN there weren’t many platforms that would take a woman by my name…and have me on talking about the NBA or the WNBA when it was not a thing,” she said.

“People may not remember all of those appearances but I was there for them.”

But it was a tough fight at first for Ogwumike, who laid out how she had to battle for the airtime to discuss the ratification of the WNBA’s Collective Bargaining Agreement in 2020.

“There was a segment that I begged to break it down because I knew I was not going to be there when the CBA was ratified, but it was going to make the news,” she recalled.

“I had to record it in SportsCenter during a commercial break which meant I couldn’t make a mistake that broke down what the CBA accomplished.”

Ogwumike added that “it took me a long time to pitch for that to happen,” noting that once the news broke, “that segment ran for days.”

Thanks to coverage from the likes of Ogwumike as well as the emergence of superstars such as A’ja Wilson, Caitlin Clark , and Angel Reese , the WNBA is continually soaring to new heights.

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