Stephen A. Smith Signs 5-Year, $100M Deal With ESPN – Report​on March 6, 2025 at 11:56 pm

The money was never in doubt, Stephen A. Smith has contended about his just-announced new five-year, $100 million contract.

“The money was agreed to in October,” Smith told Front Office Sports last month, saying the sticking points were more about broader topics Smith wanted to engage with, including politics, both on and off the network. “Everything that I want to do, you gotta make sure it’s all there — it’s in the language [of the contract] — because the devil’s in the details,” he said.

ESPN has been consolidating its bets on talent over the past couple of years, forking out sizable sums for a license deal for Pat McAfee’s wildly successful daily YouTube show and holding talks with Smith in an effort to keep him in the fold. With both personalities, especially Smith, ESPN gets a good return on its investment given the number of dayparts and shows on which he appears. Smith is, in his own parlance, “box office” for the network, drawing both praise and criticism for his hot takes — but always drawing attention.

As it approaches the launch of its flagship streaming service this fall, ESPN is re-evaluating its programming approach. It went through sizable layoffs as part of a larger cost-cutting regime overseen by Disney CEO Bob Iger, with a number of longtime anchors and reporters leaving the company.

The terms of Smith’s new deal were reported today by The Athletic, which said the agreement “will result in Smith continuing to star on First Take on ESPN while scaling back some of his other required appearances on the network, which would free him up to talk even more about politics.”

Some of those scaled-back duties will include no longer being a regular on ESPN’s NBA pregame show Countdown.

ESPN declined comment on the agreement when reached by Deadline.

The Athletic put Smith’s pervious deal at $12M per year, which makes the new contract a 66% pay increase.