Stephen A. Smith in line to become richest ESPN on air talent ever

Source: Paul Archuleta / Getty

Stephen A. Smith In Line To Become Richest ESPN Talent Ever

Stephen A. Smith is a lot of things, many of those are debatable, but the one thing that cannot be argued is that the brotha works hard. Damn hard. For the past few years, you’d be hard-pressed to turn to ESPN at any given time of day and not see the (in)famous hairline in sports journalism and possibly the world at large.

Yesterday news broke via NYPost that SAS is up for a new contract that will likely make him the richest on-air personality in the entire history of “the worldwide leader in sports”.

Smith is in line to become the highest-paid on-air person at ESPN by potentially boosting his salary to $10 million per year, according to people with knowledge of the upcoming negotiations.

How does that $10 million per year figure compare to some of his peers in Bristol you ask? Well…

By comparison, Mike Greenberg is paid $6.5 million to host “Get Up!,” which is the network’s highest publicly known salary. PTI’s Michael Wilbon and Tony Kornheiser are believed to be in Greenberg’s neighborhood.

It will be little while before negotiations officially begin considering that Stephen A. still has 2 years left on a contract that is thought to be paying him around $5 million per year, but it is believed that he is damn near indispensable and will be rewarded mightily for all the work he does between First Take, his radio show, Sportscenter, NBA coverage, college coverage, NFL coverage.

You might not always like SAS, but you gotta respect the hustle.