Tony Reali Reflects on ESPN’s ‘Around the Horn’ After Program’s 23-Year Run: ‘This Show Was a Show About Feeling’

For Tony Reali, sports have never been about numbers.

It is an ironic realization for the presenter of the 46-year-old interview program, who jumped to FAMA in ESPN as the «Statistical Chico» of Know-UT. Forgive the interruption before taking charge in 2004 as the host of Around the hornA sports conversation program based on the award of points to the panelists who make the best arguments.

The winners of each program earn 30 seconds of their own air time at the end of each show to highlight a problem or give thanks to something important to them. But in recent weeks, like Around the horn It approaches its final episode on Friday, May 23 after 23 years in the air, an increasing number of those moments has been used to shed light on what it has meant for the world of sports media and races. Around the horn It has helped jump.

«In the end, this was a program on the sports debate and on the voices and about the experts that cover the games and on a button and dummates. But for me, this was a show about the sensation,» Reali tells People. «Sports are a duct for feelings.»

Reali has certainly been sentimental while reflecting on the historical execution of 4,953 episodes of the program. ESPN announced its plans in early March to cancel Around the horn Despite what he called an «incredibly rare» and «remarkable» execution on his network. Reali was «certainly surprised» when he received the news, but seems to have accepted goodbye.

«Twenty -three years and 4,953 episodes are a success story, no matter how it ends,» he says. «You can tell me that the program is finishing, and you can use any word you want for her. For me, it is being at sunset, and that is something wonderful. He is literally returning to the dock after turning the horn, and I am proud of that.»

The native of the New York City with the Network has increased in August, and it was told that ESPN is open to auditory ideas for other programs.

«I would love to have those conversations, and I am trying to have those conversations, but that’s where it is,» says Reali. «I have not had the conversations about what could be then in my network, but I have certainly heard incredible things from so many other places. And I certainly know how strange it is for someone to have a successful sample of 23 years like that.»

Reali’s own success began at the University of Fordham, where he worked for the local WFUV radio station of the school, playing by game for male soccer and basketball teams. Later, he would take work of rhythms that cover the Yankees, Mets, Giants and Jets of New York before joining ESPN in 2000 as a researcher and writer of the Two -minute drill, The Precursor Games Program organized by Kenny Mayne.

I was deeply obsessed with sports. At some point, Reali remembers, he became his entire life. «I used to go to the office just to watch sports on eight different televisions in the dark on the best Sunday of September,» he laughs.

Even the fortuitous meeting between Reali and his wife Samiya occurred due to sports. After noticing that a flag soccer team in the park was a short member, Reali offered to intervene and quickly reached a friendship with his teammates, who invited him to dinner later in the restaurant where Samiya worked.

«It was love at first glance,» says Reali. So he seized the moment and asked Samiya, and committed themselves in 2007 and now share three children, Francesca, Antonella and Enzo. (The couple lost their son Amadeo at birth in 2018, which performed during an episode shortly after Father’s Day that year, one of the most emotional segments of the program and one that highlighted their effort to contextualize sports within the rest of the world).

Shortly after meeting his wife, he took advantage of the other biggest opportunity for his life when he was officially asked to take charge Around the hornThe original host Max Kellerman. His first episode was on February 2, 2004, the day after the Super Bowl XXXVIII. «I sweated through my clothes,» Reali recalls, who soon began to say a prayer before each show. «I was 25 years old. I had a suit. I had a second draw the next day, and for Wednesday I was without clothes.»

But it did not take long to get comfortable in the ET slot of the 5 PM of ESPN. «I am someone who feels very comfortable in his own skin,» says the host, who also continued his appearances as PTI‘s «Stat boy» until 2014. «I feel that I can connect with anyone snapshot.

Around the horn It was the daily soap box for some of the largest idols in the business, from the columnists Woody Paige and Bob Ryan to Bill Plaschke and Tim Cowlishaw. But throughout the 21 years of Reali as presenter of the program, the program has evolved from a sportswrit’s showcase to a launch platform for the most important names of ESPN, helping to introduce characters such as Jamele Hill, Bomani Jones, Sarah Spain, Frank Isola and more to national audiences.

by the time Around the horn He hits its final bell, ESPN’s Airways will be filled with the alumni of the program. Some even organize their own podcasts and programs, including Elle Duncan, Mina Kimes, Pablo Torre and Clinton Yates. Others have become experts in their sport, from Ramona Shelburne to Monica McNutt, Emily Kaplan, Harry Lyles Jr. and more. Even Lil Wayne and Mark Cuban have joined the program to provide their most popular the versions of the sports news of the day.

«That is what I really found satisfaction,» says Reali. «These are the people we present. I hope people recognize that we were welcoming all the voices and worked to be true in those voices and not only take a side of a discussion.»

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Come next week, an energetic and energetic enhancement will look for a full -time work for the first time in more than two decades. Like the endless Google document that has for Around the hornThe last week of shows, Reali has pages of ideas that you have for the new ones. There is the idea of ​​going alone and organizing its own program on YouTube, building its own sports website, becoming the «Mr. Rogers» of sports and creating a sports program focused on children, or following one of the steps of your favorite host and making a sports travel program inspired by Anthony Bourdain. And, of course, there is the NFL Redzone, which has openly expressed interest in rumors about the future of Scott Hanson with the program.

«I have more muscles, I have great desires and I have more energy than anyone on the planet,» says Reali. «I am happy, delighted and hungry to do something new, and the landscape and industry are much more welcoming for someone like me than ever.»

But as long as he is ready to move forward, during the next few days he will look back. It is vertiginous when it talks about the end of the program, which is full of tributes, flashbacks and special appearances for guests. More panelists of the usual will also be in the air this week to say goodbye, some of whom have already shed tears while expressing reali what he and his program have meant for conversation about sports since then. Around the horn First, it was aired 23 very different years ago.

«People forget what you say, and forget what you do, but remember how you make them feel,» says Reali, to close the greatest chapter of their life. «And this show was a tremendous place for people to feel.»