This article theorizes sports media celebrity and illustrates the impact of media figures like Stephen A. Smith, highlighting ideological implications.
This article complements the expansive work on athletic celebrity with a theorization of sports media celebrity, in the process arguing that sports media personalities such as play-by-play announcers and pundits have, like athletes, assumed a central place in sporting life and in broader culture and society. In addition to generally historicizing and theorizing sports media celebrity, the article offers an extended case study of ESPN personality Stephen A. Smith, using his celebrity persona to illustrate the ability of sports media celebrity to elucidate the entanglement of sports media in wider ideological and material forces.
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Buehler et al. (2025) studied this question.
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