“He’s just really good at going off the cuff and having an opinion on almost anything,” says Stephen Warren, an assistant teaching professor at Northeastern University.
In 2025, online discussions are consumed by hot takes, debatelords and “conversational combat.” And while many people turn their opinions into content, few have spun them into a personal brand as successfully as sports commentator Stephen A. Smith, Northeastern University observers say.
“His whole shtick is the hot take,” says Stephen Warren, an assistant teaching professor at Northeastern. “And we’re not necessarily talking about well-informed hot takes. He’s just really good at going off the cuff and having an opinion on almost anything.”
Smith is a longtime TV personality who is currently one of the hosts of ESPN’s “First Take,” a program that features sport commentary and debate on the day’s sports news. A longtime journalist with deep roots in print media, Smith cultivated his pugnacious, tell-it-like-it-is persona over the better part of two decades, parlaying his success into books, a podcast and — as of last week — a new contract with ESPN worth over $100 million.
As part of the new deal, Smith will apparently be given new latitude to discuss politics — a move that Warren says runs up against the network’s longstanding ethos of keeping only to sports talk.
“For years, if someone spoke out politically, they were essentially told to stop doing that or else look for another job,” says Warren, a sports communication scholar. “That is what I find interesting: that ESPN seems to be willing to allow people to talk politics to some degree, so long as it can be justified under the umbrella of entertainment value.”
Smith took to criticizing the Democratic Party in the wake of former Vice President Kamala Harris’ loss to President Donald Trump, leading some to speculate that he could be gearing up to run for office. His attack on the latest brand of Democratic liberalism is grounded in a critique of so-called “wokeness” and cancel culture, but also on a culture of elite condescension that he says “swapped out kitchen-table issues for a series of alluring, and ultimately destructive, ideas about justice.”
“They need to cleanse the Democratic Party as we know it,” Smith said last month, according to New York Magazine. “Woke culture and cancel culture ravaged the country. The Democrats were way more focussed on that than the economy, immigration, and crime.”
Smith is far from the first person from the world of sports or sports entertainment to step into the realm of politics. American political history is replete with examples of crossovers, from Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jesse Ventura, to Tommy Tuberville, Jack Kemp and Bill Bradley.
Warren describes Smith’s arc into political commentary as part of “a natural progression,” a predictable course for a certain style of brash punditry dominating media markets. That style, Warren says, is “not what you say, but how you say it.”
“He has the tools to do it,” Warren says. “I think that what makes him attractive is that he’s able to go toe to toe with these other commentators and pundits, who similarly aren’t necessarily grounded in facts, and win on vibes alone.”
At a moment when confidence in the Democratic Party is at a low ebb, Smith’s analyses of the political situation have attracted serious attention from media outlets that have mused about his political prospects. “Do not underestimate him,” reads one op-ed in the Los Angeles Times.
A recent profile of Smith in the New Yorker put it less mildly: “Stephen A. Smith for President.”
“Steven A. Smith isn’t the first seemingly ubiquitous shock jock, but in a world of constantly changing engagement platforms, from cable to streaming to the proliferation of podcasts, we are seeing a movement where personalities are superseding institutionalized brands in a race for market share,” says Dan Lebowitz, executive director of Northeastern University’s Center for the Study of Sport in Society.
In the aftermath of the November election, Smith said he’d consider running for public office if he had a legitimate shot. He’s since downplayed his own political ambitions, while still leaning full-throatedly into criticisms of Democratic Party leadership.
“Even though there are alot of qualified Democrats all over the country from a local perspective, there’s no real national voice,” Smith said on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.” “Enter moi. They’ve come to me.”
He goes on to say: “I did not ask for this; I don’t want this; I happen to have a very, very good life. Very good job. I’m good.”
Lebowitz sees Smith as less a serious voice on the left than “a brand of sound-bites,” someone willing to “embrace the profile of antagonist … as a proven pathway to celebrity relevance.”
“Brash bravado is seemingly in, and Steven A. Smith is cashing in,” he says.
“Barnum and Bailey showmanship is not new, but Smith is its new face,” Lebowitz says. “Where it will take him in the future depends on the changing winds of popular culture.”