Stephen A. Smith, who will be speaking at the BSM Summit in New York later this week, spoke during a panel at the Sports Track of the SXSW culture festival in Austin, TX. Smith was asked what he wants his professional legacy to be and he replied, “I want to be recognized as arguably the greatest sports commentator who ever lived.”
Smith continued and talked about all of the content he has plans to create and how he will get there. “I want to be an impact player, one of the preeminent voices, on any level, that this nation has ever seen. When I say voice, that voice comes in a multitude of ways. It comes with me in front of the microphone and the camera. It comes with me behind the scenes as an executive producer, I have a docuseries coming out in a month.”
Smith then added more about a project he has spoke of recently, but still cannot quite announce, when he added, “It comes with me as a content creator as an executive producer and a creator of a drama series that just got picked up that I am not at liberty to announce for about about another two or three weeks, that I am doing in concert with John Legend and Michael B. Jordan.”
He also hit on a future project which he didn’t say what it would be, only who it is he will work with on it. “It comes with projects that I am working on with the great Antoine Fuqua who has done Training Day and Olympus Has Fallen,” he said “…One of the great, great directors and producers this world has ever seen and he is a personal firend of mine, and my aspiration is to do something with him, coming down to one path and that is being a preeminent voice, a mover and shaker, an impact player of epic proportions and that is what I intend to do.”
Smith was also asked about his upcoming negotiations with ESPN during the panel and Sportico reports his response was, “I will never say I’m more valuable than a $22 billion business. What I will say, however, is I am incredibly valuable. I’m No. 1 at the network, and that matters. I contribute to the bottom line; I don’t bleed it. That doesn’t make me worth more than them, but it doesn’t mean I need them in order to survive and to prosper. There are other ways to prosper. I am not a prisoner to the ESPN/Walt Disney family.”
Smith was also asked about his relationship with ESPN teammate Pat McAfee. Last week a story surfaced that the two exchanged a heated phone call. “Me and Pat McAfee are fine,” Smith said. “And even if we aren’t, I’ll never tell. It’s true I’ll cuss your a** out , that’s me if you deserve it. After I said what I said, we are fine. With Pat McAfee, we are fine.”
