Why Gratitude Will Be The Defining Legacy Of ESPN’s ‘Around The Horn’
Most TV shows in the grand scheme of life don’t make it to 23 episodes, let alone 23 years. ESPN’s perennial 5pm mainstay, Around The Horn, has occupied that plum real estate leading into Pardon The Interruption since 2002. I was in eighth grade in 2002. Several generations-worth of younger people have now grown up and older having gotten to watch a show that has done that magical tightrope walk of balancing a fun & high-concept idea, while being genuinely informative by way of highlighting real journalistic writers. Come the end of this week though (May 23rd 2025), ATH will air its final episode. Having been sunsetted by ESPN to make way for… something.
I’m not going to break down the histrionics or recap every little detail of ATH. I’ll leave that to Wikipedia. If you are reading this, you probably already have some working knowledge of ESPN programming.
But what I am here to do is put into practice what ATH, under longtime host since 2004 Tony Reali (the Jon Stewart to original host Max Kellerman’s Craig Kilborn), has brought to the table and made the show’s defining quality: gratitude.
When ATH first began, it was clear Reali was attempting, as a very young man, to fit into the show. But as the years went on, the show began to grow out of its initial phase and conform to Reali. Taking on an evolution that brought more diverse voices into the fold, allowed writers to cut their teeth on TV, and became a program unafraid to allow people to wear their heart on their sleeve and allow them to use sports as a way to examine or expand on the broader culture around us.
A minority of folks in more recent years have claimed that this now means ATH has become “too woke.” A take that is so cold at this point it’s got freezer burn. Some people jumped all over panelist Mina Kimes earlier this year for saying the government shouldn’t have erased an article about Jackie Robinson’s military service from the Dept. of Justice website. If speaking about how Jackie Robinson’s military history shouldn’t be erased is “too woke” then we’ve truly lost the plot.
Back in reality, what this has meant is that ATH has been allowed the rare space and longevity to grow with its host and contributors. These aren’t just people who have clocked into a job, done the work, then clocked out and kept each other at arm's length. These are people who make it clear every time they come together that they genuinely have each other’s backs on air, in between the breaks, and when the cameras aren’t rolling.
This is a show that has seen Tony & various contributors come together to do things like support Tim Cowlishaw’s sobriety, allow Israel Gutierrez to speak out against homophobia in the UFC (which airs on ESPN & its digital platforms), and Tony himself has been extremely open about his own life and the need for compassion & grace in every area of our day to day (why not in sports?).
It’s also a show that has been a launching pad for scores of talented folks who have gone on to become big sports media players in their own right. People like Pablo Torre, Bomani Jones, Frank Isola, Jemele Hill, David Dennis Jr, Justin Tinsley, Mina Kimes, Monica McNutt. All of them (and too many more to name) have cut their teeth on ATH as a kind of de-facto media training.
Reali & his team have cultivated the kind of environment where it’s hard not to get excited for others when they get the chance to chop it up on the ATH panel. I became friends with Andscape writer & ATH panelist Martenzie Johnson in the early days of the pandemic through a mutual friend and when he got the call up to be on ATH, it was a great day because when you know someone & their work, you know how hard they grind it out to put in the hours to hone their craft. To see firsthand Tony recognize someone who truly deserves more chances like that and pick them to be a part of the ride is a fantastic feeling and, frankly, we’d all be a lot better off getting up for our friends in the present rather than waiting until it’s too late. Another key sentiment often shared on ATH. (though it’s a shame I’ll no longer get to send him photoshops when he loses)
To use a banned phrase, at the end of the day, the media landscape has been changing for some time now. But the sunsetting of Around The Horn feels especially like the end of an era. At a time when the stock of real sports journalists and beat writers seems at an all time low, ESPN is willingly choosing to remove one of the last bricks in a house originally beaming with open spots for regional & national sports reporters.
Whatever they choose to replace Around The Horn with, I can only hope that it continues the 5pm time slot’s 20+ year tradition of highlighting new, important writers & voices.
Here in the present, we can only be so lucky that we had a show like Around The Horn for 23 years. We still do for a few more days. I’ll leave you with the perfect epitome of what this show has meant to the people who lived it. Harry Lyles Jr, it’s Facetime:
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