Stephen A. Smith is probably the biggest sports analyst to have walked the earth. No matter if you don’t like his takes or find him annoying, the sports guy of ESPN has made millions by being as animated as he is on Camera. He is the Magic Johnson or Michael Jordan of sports media, at least he believes himself to be.
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There are not many experts of the game who have not played professional basketball but would mention their names in the same breath as MJ, Magic, Larry Bird, or LeBron James. Probably just two, FS1’s Skip Bayless and the man we are talking about.
Stephen A. Smith thanks Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson for taking the NBA to new heights
There would be no way for James to become a billionaire while still playing the game of basketball, nor for Stephen A. to be one of the richest journalists in the media fraternity.
In his recent appearance on the Jennifer Hudson Show, the 55-year-old gave his flowers to the games’ biggest icons in MJ, Magic, and Bird for taking it to the level of popularity it reached after the 80s.
“If it were not for Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson specifically, there would be no LeBron James,” Smith said, thanking Jordan and Magic and Bird before him for the league’s overall success that also resulted in the huge success of the NBA media.
Smith has an estimated net worth north of $20 million and is currently on a 5-year, $60 million contract with Disney. The ESPN man takes home $12,000,000 a year after he signed the big contract in 2019.
The Bird Magic made the NBA famous, and Jordan took it to greatness
Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, Jerry West, Dr. J, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar are some of the true pioneers of the game. However, since Larry Bird and Magic Johnson came into the picture in 1979, NBA changed forever.
By the time MJ came in in 1984, the league was one of the top-4 popular sports in the nation competing neck to neck with Baseball, NFL, and Ice Hockey like never before.
In the next 8 years, it was slowly becoming the most-watched sport in the world and among the top-4 sports in the States. But the 1992 Barcelona Olympics spread the popularity of the like wildfire.
By the turn of the century, Jordan had become as big a star athlete in the world as Muhammad Ali or Mike Tyson. Knowing what boxing was at that time, you can now understand what MJ means to basketball.
