Michael Smith is following his former “SC6” co-host Jemele Hill, and bouncing from the show.
Sports Illustrated reported the following late Thursday:
Sports Illustrated has learned that Michael Smith’s last day as an ESPN SportsCenter host will be Friday.
Smith leaving the 6 p.m. SC6 edition of SportsCenter follows his former SportsCenter co-anchor Jemele Hill ’s decision to depart the franchise to join the staff of The Undefeated, the ESPN microsite that fuses sports, race and culture, as well as other additional assignments. Both Hill and Smith have multiple years left on their ESPN contracts so look for Smith to craft a new role at ESPN over the next couple of months.
The show lasted only 13 months. I believe that’s what we like to call in the business a complete and utter failure.
This show deserves to die and go away forever, which is almost certainly what will happen. The show was specifically crafted for Hill and Smith. Pretty hard to go on when the two people it’s designed for are leaving.
Anybody with an ounce of common sense could tell that this show was doomed from the start. Sports fans aren’t tuning into ESPN to get lectured about social justice and politics, which was a regular occurrence on “SC6.” Sports fans are tuning in because we want some highlights, we want to see the games and we don’t want to hear about politics. There are plenty of other channels viewers can go to if they want to get saturated with political garbage.
It especially didn’t help the show’s cause when Hill came out and called Trump a white supremacist.
Donald Trump is a white supremacist who has largely surrounded himself w/ other white supremacists.
— Jemele Hill (@jemelehill) September 11, 2017
Good riddance to this garbage show. Hopefully ESPN has learned its lesson.