ESPN’s Marcus Spears is 6-foot-3, 300-plus pounds and full of TV talent. He has a huge presence, a distinctive voice and a personality that has shot him through the ESPN system.
And he has big goals.
“I want to be a star,” Spears told The Post. “I want to be a star. I’m not shy about it.”
Spears, 36, is already a major part of the SEC Network, and his air time on ESPN keeps growing.
He is not the Charles Barkley of football, but he has some Barkley qualities that make him stand out.
Spears has a tear-up-the-rundown naturalness on TV that cuts through. A few weeks ago, “Get Up!” host Mike Greenberg asked Spears about the Browns in what could’ve been a run-of-the-mill segment.
With Greenberg’s Jets struggling and losing again the day before, Spears audibled, ignored the question and consoled Greenberg on the air. The best live TV just happens.
“It’s because I’m being me, man” Spears said. “Initially, when I started in the business, I was like, ‘We are going to see if people accept me for who I am. If they don’t, I won’t be in this career a long time. I want to be relatable. Being myself is relatable.”
Spontaneity and being relatable is what has made Barkley the best studio analyst of all-time.
Spears and Barkley are friends. Recently, they were on the SEC Network’s “Thinking Out Loud” getting pedicures.
“I’ve had some people tell me, ‘You are the football version of Charles Barkley,’” Spears said. “I kind of don’t like it because Charles has been doing it for a long time. I don’t know if I’m going to be that good for that long.
“I just don’t think I should be compared to someone who is going to go down in the Hall of Fame of media.”
Spears is right. Nobody may ever be Barkley, but Spears has that same relaxed, genuine, having-more-fun-than-anybody-on-TV vibe. Spears is going places.
ESPN’s most marquee NFL program is “Sunday Countdown.” Matt Hasselbeck’s and Rex Ryan’s contracts are up after this year. It could be a landing spot for Booger McFarland, if ESPN makes another change to “Monday Night Football.” But Spears should be considered heavily for such a role. He’s earned the opportunity.
Spears won a national championship at LSU as a defensive end and was a Cowboys first-round draft pick, but to get his first big post-playing-career job five years ago, he needed to resort to social media, tweeting at a top ESPN executive, Stephanie Druley, who was running the SEC Network at the time.
Spears asked if Druley could follow him so he could send her a direct message.
“She said, ‘Send me some reels,’” said Spears, who grew up in Baton Rouge. “I had no ideas what reels were. I thought she was talking about fishing rods.”
He tried out, impressed Druley and it ended up being a perfect fit for the then-new SEC Network, where he still does “Thinking Out Loud” with co-analyst Greg McElroy and he is part of the College Gameday-like “SEC Nation,” forming a strong analyst combo with Tim Tebow and Paul Finebaum. It all started from a tweet.
“That has not happened since and never happened before that,” Druley said.
Spears’ role on SEC Network has grown through the years. He is a big part of the improved “Get Up!” and does “NFL Live.” He is already moving on up. It may just be the start.
MLB TV: Baseball’s TV story is often portrayed negatively, but it shouldn’t be. Yes, NBC’s “Sunday Night Football” out-rated a World Series game, but baseball is about tonnage.
MLB’s regular season of 162 games is the most important piece of real estate for regional cable networks such as YES and SNY.
The ratings for individual games between football and baseball are a supply-and-demand issue. While NFL games would probably still be more popular, if the Yankees only played 16 games a year instead of 162, what kind of numbers do you think they would put up? No one compares the Yankees’ or Mets’ attendance of 81 home dates to the Jets’ or Giants’ eight.
This brings us to the World Series. By going seven games — again, tonnage — it is a winner for Fox as it puts the network atop, or near the top, for each night.
Clicker books: The all-time Papa Clicker high score is a 4.6/5 rating. “The League: How Five Rivals Created the NFL and Launched a Sports Empire” by John Eisenberg is a special book. It is a must-read, according to Papa Clicker, for anyone interested in how the NFL came to be. While the book did not reach the 4.7 Holy Grail, it did garner 4.6 clickers to tie the record.