Nearly two years has passed since Stephen A. Smith began hosting his own radio show on Sirius/XM Radio via Mad Dog Radio. The ESPN personality saw his new platform as a good opportunity to prove that there are good African American radio hosts out there just as good—if not better.

“I’m not just able to help myself but various African Americans within the radio industry that are looking for opportunities,” he told me. “I’ve got to be a trendsetter and make it happen because if I drop the ball, I not only drop the ball for me but I drop the ball for us.”

Check Out Stephen A. Smith chat with me about the move on my Scoop B Radio Podcast

Smith was contacted by Sirius after a controversial rant by shock-jock Chris ‘Mad Dog’ Russo. In Russo’s rant, he  said that there were no black sports radio hosts on his Mad Dog Radio Show because there were no good black sports hosts out there. “I have a national voice in television and I have a national voice in digital,” Smith told me.

“Why not have a national voice in radio?”

Smith’s show airs weekdays from 1-3 p.m via the World Wide Leader’s Bristol, Connecticut campus and is produced by ESPN’s staff.

ESPN had never given anybody employed by the network the green light to do Sirius/XM radio—Smith bucked the system. According to the Big Lead’s Jason McIntyre, Sirius is paying ESPN a licensing fee for Stephen A’s show. “It’s a trailblazing move because ESPN has a channel on Sirius/XM,” said Smith. “But I’m not on the ESPN channel; I’m on the Mad Dog Channel.”

Make sure to check out Smith on this recent episode of Scoop B Radio embeded above and also make sure to subscribe to all other episodes of the show at ScoopBRadio.com.

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