Bomani Jones Is Wrong About ESPN's Inability To Make Stars

Bomani Jones missed the mark when he said his former employer no longer has the ability to make stars.

"They’re out of ideas. Or at the very least, nobody is in the business of coming up with new ideas," Jones said about ESPN on Marchand Sports Media. "And you could say what you want about ESPN, but for the majority of its existence, it was a fairly visionary company when it came to content. They took a lot of chances that didn’t necessarily work."

Jones added that ESPN used to avoid paying stars top-dollar because it believed it could simply create new ones. He claimed the network’s decision to sign Stephen A. Smith to a five-year, $100 million deal is an admission that it no longer trusts its ability to do that.

"The idea that Stephen A. Smith makes $20 million a year would have been ridiculous not that long ago," he said. "The people that they are spending big money on now — McAfee and the Bussin’ With The Boys guys — are all people who built their own thing somewhere else."

Bomani’s conclusion might be accurate: ESPN is paying more for stars than ever before, including for personalities who built their brands independently. However, he is putting quite the spin on the reasoning.

For background, Jones is not impartial to the topic. He was a key figure in ESPN’s previous vision. Under executives John Skipper and Connor Schell, the strategy was to make ESPN less white and more socially active, spotlighting a range of personalities with backgrounds from elite colleges rather than traditional press boxes.

This approach sought to elevate the following names to stardom: Bomani Jones, Jemele Hill, Michael Smith, Sarah Spain, Katie Nolan, Kate Fagan, Mina Kimes, Dan Le Batard, Clinton Yates, and Israel Gutierrez. Other than Kimes — who, unlike the rest, is deeply knowledgeable about the NFL — this group largely failed. In fact, Kimes is the only one who remains at ESPN.

Notably, shows built around Jones, Hill, and Nolan were among ESPN's biggest ratings blunders to date. The vision failed.

Today, it's not that ESPN lacks a vision. It's that the strategy is much different than the one from which Jones benefited.

Under executives Burke Magnus and Dave Roberts, the priority is to get back to sports and speak to, and not down to, fans. Sure, woke dorks like Ryan Clark and Elle Duncan (for now) remain. But this is the best direction ESPN has had in years. This fall, six of its programs reported double-digit year-over-year growth.

Moreover, the network has established new stars in recent years, including Dan Orlovsky, Laura Rutledge, Marcus Spears, and Brian Windhorst. They may not reach the same levels of fame as Dan Patrick or Chris Berman, but that's more a result of the times.

Two decades ago, ESPN was the only destination for up-to-the-minute sports news and commentary. Whoever the company put on SportsCenter was a star because there were no alternatives. In 2025, ESPN competes with the entire internet. Fans can choose exactly who they want to watch. As a result, the value of "middle-class" talent has diminished, and established stars are more valuable than before.

The lack of the middle class was Stephen A.'s most valuable piece of leverage in negotiations. 

Similarly, digital disruptors gained a head start on the internet over traditional television networks. That’s why ESPN brought in McAfee and Bussin’ With The Boys, Fox News signed the hosts of the Ruthless podcast, and Fox Sports partnered with Dave Portnoy and Barstool.

The reason Bomani and Jemele Hill are so critical of the direction is that fans have more power than ever before. ESPN and other networks are no longer as interested in paying millions of dollars a year for hosts who have small audiences but the right politics and backgrounds.

Put bluntly, ESPN still has the ability to make stars. It just doesn't have the ability to make anyone a star, as evidenced by its previous vision.