In Chicago, Scoop Jackson wrote ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith’s new five-year, $100M deal is “shifting the landscape in today’s new sports media of what the future can (not necessarily will) look like for non-ex-pro athletes in broadcast journalism.” Smith’s form of “sports journalism-shared-performance art” is what “society can’t move away from.” What makes his deal “so seminal is generational money, especially when attached to a black male in an industry in which those who look like him and myself have been historically underrepresented” (CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, 3/14).
LEGACY PLAY: In Chicago, LaMond Pope noted on-air talent Brooke Fletcher will be a new member of the White Sox broadcast team. Her father, former MLBer Scott Fletcher, played for the team in the 1980s and early 90s. Brooke’s duties will “include providing in-game reports from near the dugout” as well as “pre- and postgame coverage.” Her previous gigs include working as a host for former Bally Sports' “The Rally”, serving as a sideline reporter for AppleTV+ on its MLB broadcasts and covering the Tigers, Pistons and Red Wings for Bally Sports Detroit. She is also a sideline reporter for the Big 10 Network (CHICAGO TRIBUNE, 3/15).
