Around the Horn evolved beyond 'Sports Shouting' and into ESPN's pantheon

USA Today

21-05-2025

Around the Horn evolved beyond 'Sports Shouting' and into ESPN's pantheon
Way back in 2009, Around The Horn got the honor of a lifetime... sort of.
The ESPN show known for Tony Reali giving or docking points from a daily panel of sports journalists -- and occasionally hitting them with a MUTE with a slam of his hand on a giant button -- was lampooned by none other than 30 Rock in its Season 4 episode, "The Problem Solvers."
Tracy Jordan (played by Tracy Morgan) mentions he's a frequent guest on Sports Shouting, a show featuring four talking heads, well, shouting at the same time. The very clear nod to ATH was a shot across the bow, perhaps a commentary about the whole "Embrace Debate" ethos that took over ESPN in the 21st century.
But when Tina Fey is making a joke about you, it means you're a cultural touchstone.
I bring this up because Around The Horn is about to air its final show on Thursday, ending a 23-year run that's remarkable in this era of television. And what we've seen since that 30 Rock cutaway gag is the evolution of a show that deserves to be in the ESPN pantheon with names like SportsCenter, The Sports Reporters, Outside the Lines, College GameDay, and Pardon the Interruption.
Back in 2019, I had the chance to visit the new set of the debate show in downtown New York City and spent a day with the charismatic Tony Reali, who famously went from the baby-faced 23-year-old Stat Boy on PTI to the respectful ringmaster of the circus that was getting four journalists to express themselves in quick segments, scoring them in a wacky game show format.
Besides the fact that everyone you speak to about Reali talks about what a good person he is -- PTI's Michael Wilbon told me back then that Reali was "a prince among men" -- there was also the way that he and the show led the charge to make it more than "Sports Shouting."
I watched ATH for years and saw that evolution. Sure, the show was still about coming up with a take for the topic of the day, backing it up with stats and angles that weren't cliches (lest you get the MUTE button for spouting one). As someone who's written on the internet for a couple of decades, I can tell you how that show taught me how to sharpen my tools.
But when the sports news of the day wasn't always just about sports -- Reali and producer Aaron Solomon both talked about the 2005 episode in which panelists did an unscored segment on Tony Dungy's son James committing suicide -- Around The Horn stepped into the fire, feet first.
Just recently, Mina Kimes used her time after a win to talk about the Trump administration purging Jackie Robinson from its web pages. It was perfect.
That's what the legacy of the show should be.
Yes, we'll all remember the scoring that no one could figure out, watching names like Kevin Blackistone, J.A. Adande, Tim Cowlishaw, Bill Plaschke, Jackie MacMullan and Bob Ryan go toe-to-toe and Woody Paige's Hall of Fame run that included all those whimsical daily chalkboard messages.
But it's the way in which the show became thoughtful and honest -- led by Reali refusing to shy away from any of it, even from the devastating loss of one of his twin babies -- that should be what we all focus on as the curtains fall on a two-plus decades run. The panelists became a more diverse group -- Kimes, Clinton Yates, Sarah Spain, Pablo Torre and Israel Gutierrez among them -- and the topics had more inclusion.
In an era in which words like "diversity" and "inclusion" have turned into politicized weapons, it's all the more crushing to see a show like Around the Horn leave the airwaves. Could it have gone 23 more years? Probably not, because nothing lasts forever, especially these days. To quote Reali's beloved Goodfellas, "That's the hardest part. Today, everything is different."
But when Reali, the producers and the entire run of journalists take a bow after Thursday's show, they should be proud of the work they did to advance from shouting about sports to thinking deeper about them.