First Take

Sports voice · Verified

ESPN's daily debate show where Stephen A. Smith and Molly Qerim argue the biggest sports stories of the day.

#71Hub rank

4,035,674Instagram followers

About First Take

First Take is ESPN’s debate-show juggernaut: the daily sports argument that turned hot takes into appointment television. Stephen A. Smith — the loudest, most quotable voice in sports media — built the show into a cultural institution, one “blasphemous” at a time.

The show’s origin story starts with Cold Pizza, the ESPN2 morning show that ran from 2003 to 2007 blending lifestyle segments with sports talk. On May 7, 2007, it was reborn as First Take — and five years later, in 2012, the program found the formula that would change sports television forever. Producer Jamie Horowitz paired Stephen A. Smith as permanent co-host opposite Skip Bayless, with Cari Champion moderating, and the two provocateurs spent hours every morning yelling at each other about LeBron James and Tim Tebow. It was electric, divisive, and impossibly watchable.

That pairing invented the modern sports-debate template — the “embrace debate” format that every network now copies. The show did not just cover the sports conversation; in many ways, it became the sports conversation. When Bayless departed ESPN for Fox in 2016 to launch Undisputed with Shannon Sharpe, First Take barely flinched: Max Kellerman slid into the debate chair, and the machine kept rolling.

The current era is anchored by Smith and moderator Molly Qerim, who has steered the show since 2015 with the rare ability to let the chaos breathe while keeping it on the rails. Around them rotates a deep bench of analysts and provocateurs: Dan Orlovsky bringing the X’s and O’s, Ryan Clark and Kendrick Perkins with the player’s perspective, Chris “Mad Dog” Russo with the old-school radio thunder, and — in a full-circle moment — Shannon Sharpe himself, who joined ESPN in 2023, plus Cam Newton bringing quarterback swagger to the desk.

The influence is structural. Before First Take, sports television was highlights and reporting; after it, every network needed its own daily argument show. The format’s DNA is now everywhere — but there is only one original, and imitation remains the sincerest form of ratings.

The numbers tell the story. In 2017, First Take recorded its most-viewed year ever, averaging 449,000 viewers — up 25 percent year over year, with December surging 60 percent — and drawing more than triple the audience of its FS1 rival. The show moved from ESPN2 to ESPN’s flagship channel in 2017, broadcast from Bristol for eleven years, then from the South Street Seaport’s Pier 17 studios starting in 2018, before relocating to ESPN’s new 7 Hudson Square headquarters in Manhattan in 2025. Nearly two decades in, it remains the genre’s ratings king.

The viral moments are endless: Smith’s rants, the manufactured outrage, the genuine insights buried in the performance. Clips travel across every platform daily — the show’s second life as content is as big as the broadcast. The program’s Instagram alone commands more than four million followers, and every morning’s loudest segment is clipped, captioned, and debated again by nightfall.

What makes it work is the sincerity beneath the shtick. For all the volume, the debates are about things fans genuinely care about — legacies, rankings, the endless GOAT arguments. It is sports-bar talk, professionalized: the same arguments happening in every barbershop in America, except with better suits and a national platform.

The Stephen A. persona — the tailored suits, the catchphrases, the “stay off the weed” — transcended sports to become pop culture. He has become arguably the single most powerful voice in sports media, with contract negotiations reportedly reaching toward nine figures. First Take is not just a show; Smith is a character in the American story.

Love it or hate it, First Take is the most consequential show in sports television — the daily argument the whole industry watches, the template every competitor copies, the loudest two hours in sports. The takes keep coming, and so does everyone else’s.

The show has also become a launchpad: the desk has minted analysts into stars and turned ex-players into television personalities. The First Take chair is one of the most coveted seats in sports media precisely because the exposure is unmatched — a great segment at 10 a.m. is a national conversation by noon.

And the format keeps evolving. As ESPN restructures around digital-first consumption — short-form highlights, mobile-first products, personality-driven narratives — First Take remains the flagship: the show that proved sports debate could be the main event, not the sideshow. Nearly twenty years after Cold Pizza became something louder, the argument is still the appointment.

The secret, if there is one, is that the show never mistakes volume for emptiness. Beneath every shouted take is a real question about greatness — who deserves the crown, who folded under the lights, what a legacy is actually worth. That is why the arguments outlive the segments, and why a show built on yelling became the most imitated format in the business.