Sports journalist and media personality Stephen A. Smith is half out of his element as he considers the latest big money news from the world of international soccer, delivering a sobering take on the disruptive economics of the modern “beautiful game,” as it’s called.
A distinguished voice on the American sporting landscape, Smith can perform Hamlet-level soliloquys on all things LeBron James and Tom Brady, including what their agents are up to.
Accordingly, Smith is also an expert in the evolving financial machinations of the big American sports, which have become an increasingly top-heavy game where the big names command the lion’s share of the loot — just like in Hollywood. (See: actors strike.)
A BILLION dollar deal could completely upset the sports landscape pic.twitter.com/J9a1caWJSG
— Stephen A Smith (@stephenasmith) July 25, 2023
In the clip above, while Smith demonstrates his deep familiarity of what these new money schemes mean — even in soccer (i.e., football) — he uncharacteristically mispronounces the name of the world’s most famous athlete, Cristiano Ronaldo. Smith calls him Ronaldi.
No harm, no foul there, as the truth bomb Smith is dropping — that professional sports teams paying outrageous sums for superstars are doomed to crash — is unhindered by a little mistake on Ronaldo’s name. It’s true Smith may be out of his element on soccer, but knows from money.
[NOTE: popularity is hard to measure, but Ronaldo has more Instagram followers than any person on earth, athlete or otherwise. Indeed, he leads the second place figure, fellow footballer Leo Messi, by more than 100 million followers. ]
Smith asserts in his video that French soccer star Kylian Mbappé won’t transfer from Paris Saint-Germain despite a Saudi bid for his services that came in north of $300 million — but that Mbappé is expected to enter a deal next year with Real Madrid for something in the neighborhood of $1 billion. Smith shakes his damn head, as they say, predicting chaos.
The NBA star Austin Rivers, whose father Doc Rivers coached the Boston Celtics to the 2008 NBA championship after a long NBA career himself, recently talked about what the top-heavy salary structure was doing to his league — a league in which he practically grew up.
The video below, featuring Rivers, helps explain why even though Stephen A. Smith’s expertise is the NBA and other American sports, this sports franchise money issue is one he is telling real hard truths about. Whether he gets all the names right or not.
"If you were a free agent, then you could choose where you were gonna go… This started with James [Harden] and Ben [Simmons] and all these guys doing this sh*t. It's bad for the league."
— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPoints) July 24, 2023
Austin Rivers on Damian Lillard's trade demand
(via ringernba/TT)pic.twitter.com/IsBfRAlace
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