Around the Horn

Last updated

Around the Horn
Around the Horn logo 2018.jpg
Around the Horn logo
Genre Sports talk
Panel show
Debate
Presented by Tony Reali (2004–present)
Max Kellerman (2002–2004)
StarringSee panelists
Theme music composer Umphrey's McGee (2015–2022)
Country of originUnited States
Original languageEnglish
No. of seasons22
No. of episodes4,831 [1]
Production
Executive producersJames Cohen
Erik Rydholm
Mark Shapiro
Producers Dan Farmer
Aaron Solomon
Bill Wolff
Running time30 minutes (with commercials)
Original release
Network ESPN
ReleaseNovember 4, 2002 (2002-11-04) 
present

Around the Horn (ATH) is an American sports roundtable discussion show, conducted in the style of a panel game, produced by ESPN. The show premiered on November 4, 2002, as a replacement for Unscripted with Chris Connelly, and has aired daily at 5:00 p.m. ET on ESPN ever since. The show has been recorded in New York City since September 8, 2014, and has had over 4,000 episodes aired as of 2020. The program emanated from Washington, D.C., where it was located in the same facility as Pardon the Interruption (PTI). Production still is based in Washington, D.C. [2] The moderator for the show is Tony Reali, who has hosted the program since 2004, replacing Max Kellerman, and also served as the statistician on Pardon the Interruption until the show's relocation to New York.

Contents

Broadcast history

Around the Horn logo from its premiere to November 2, 2018. Around the Horn logo.svg
Around the Horn logo from its premiere to November 2, 2018.

Around the Horn premiered on November 4, 2002. [3] From its premiere until January 30, 2004, the show was hosted by Max Kellerman, who at the time was largely known strictly as a contributor to ESPN's Friday Night Fights . In late 2003, Kellerman announced that he would depart from the network for Fox Sports; [4] [5] after the show tried out several replacements, current host Tony Reali was named the permanent host on February 2, 2004, three days after Kellerman's last episode aired. [6] As of September 23, 2019, Woody Paige has the most wins in the history of the show, with more than six hundred. [7] Despite early negative reviews due to its now-defunct argumentative formatting, [8] the show has lasted more than twenty years on the air, remaining a staple on ESPN. [9] The show became less combative and more playful over the years, and in 2018, changed its look with augmented reality of the panel with Reali standing in an enhanced studio at ESPN's South Street Seaport studios with a continuation of the relaxed tone of the show since the mid-2010s.

The show went on hiatus from March 16, 2020 to May 8, 2020, as a result of a national emergency being declared due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused the suspension of sports leagues around the world. Between May 11, 2020 and July 10, 2020, Around the Horn aired for 20 minutes with commercials at 4:40 p.m. EDT as Around the Home under a new format where Tony Reali, along with three panelists, discussed sports issues from their own homes. The Around the Home format became semipermanent beginning with the July 13, 2020 episode, which saw the show expand back to its normal length. The show returned to its regular format when it returned to the studio in September 2020, although the Around the Home format is still used occasionally.

It was announced on November 20, 2024, that Around the Horn will come to an end by summer 2025. [10] Shortly after this announcement, daily episodes were added to Disney+. [11]

The set

The original set was in the same Atlantic Video complex as the set for Pardon the Interruption . [12] It featured the host's desk with the point triggers [13] and mute buttons. [14] The judge of the show scores four panelists, that are shown on four different screens. [15] Behind the host's desk was a map of the contiguous United States of America with the cities the sportswriters on the show appeared from. The map, divided into time zones, displayed the names of five newspapers representing each time zone. The Los Angeles Times represented the Pacific Time Zone, the Denver Post the Mountain Time Zone, the Dallas Morning News and Chicago Sun-Times both represented the Central Time Zone, and the Boston Globe represented the Eastern Time Zone. This was to create a regionally biased discussion, but this was later phased out.

When panelist Woody Paige was based in New York, the logo of Cold Pizza was added to the Eastern Time Zone side of the map as Paige also appeared on that program. Eventually, the logo of the Boston Globe was replaced by the word "Boston" as many of the contributors from Boston were no longer writing for the Globe. The map was eventually revised in this way for the other cities on the map, but there cities of other contributors were not added to the board (possibly due to a lack of space) before the map was removed. Panelists still appear from left to right as on a map of the United States, from the westernmost on the left to the easternmost on the right.

On September 27, 2010, Around the Horn and Pardon the Interruption began broadcasting in high definition and moved from the Atlantic Video complex to facilities in the ABC News Washington bureau, where high definition sets were built for both shows. [16] In 2014, Reali relocated to New York, with a studio built in ABC's Times Square Studios. [17] In 2018, in conjunction with the conclusion of Reali's work on Good Morning America , the show moved to ESPN's South Street Seaport Studios with an enhanced set featuring augmented reality.

Each panelist appears either in the offices of their newspaper, in front of a screen representing the city in which they are located, or in another studio. Dallas, Denver, and Los Angeles (when Bill Plaschke is appearing) still use their newspaper offices as studio space while Washington, Miami, Chicago, and Boston each have their own screens. (Los Angeles employs this as well when J.A. Adande is a panelist.) Newspaper office space is rarely used in today's iteration.

Rounds

The current Around the Horn format consists of the following:

Previous formats

Before the format of the show was changed in early 2003, the format was similar, wherein the first two rounds were largely the same but with different titles. There was a bigger difference after that. The show ran like so:

Despite the change in format, Reali still occasionally announces "ten topics, one winner" at the beginning of the show regardless of the number of topics.

This format ran from 2003 to 2015:

Hosts

Guest hosts

Panelists

Active panelists

where the panelist is based next to their name on the show most of the time.

Former panelists

Panelist statistics

Current statistics after the Tuesday, December 17, 2024 program [21]

Name# wins# appearanceswinning %Special Notes
Woody Paige 6802,94623.1%All-time leader in wins & appearances, 2015 Tournament of Champions; 70-70 versus Bob Ryan; Winner of ATH's 20th Anniversary show.
Tim Cowlishaw 5442,08426.1%First show: November 5, 2002; 2018 & 2021 Tournament of Champions; 82-79 versus Woody Paige; 23-10 versus Frank Isola, fourth lowest score (-99)
Bill Plaschke 4261,74224.5%First show: April 16, 2003; 2014 Tournament of Champions, third lowest score (-108), 74-66 versus Woody Paige, 21-14 versus Frank Isola, 13-9 versus Sarah Spain
Kevin Blackistone 3801,58723.9%First show: January 21, 2003; 2011 Tournament of Champions, 39-38 versus Bill Plaschke, 61-52 versus Woody Paige
J. A. Adande 3361,28726.1%First show: November 11, 2002; 2012 Tournament of Champions, 44-37 versus Tim Cowlishaw
Jay Mariotti 3291,54921.2%Hasn't appeared on the show since August 2010; Consecutive shows record (265 episodes); Won 2009 April Fools episode hosted by Woody Paige, only episode to be scored with golf score procedure (lowest points wins).
Jackie MacMullan 25889029.0%First show: November 12, 2002; Lowest score (-474); 37-35 versus Woody Paige; Last show 12/22/2021, retired after 19 years on ATH and 39 years at ESPN
Israel Gutierrez 226.586626.2%First show: March 18, 2008; 2023 Tournament of Champions
Bob Ryan 22175029.5%8-6 versus Bill Plaschke
Frank Isola 18588121.0%First show: 2013, 2016 Tournament of Champions, Lowest active winning percentage (minimum 100 appearances), 7-5 versus Jorge Sedano, 4-1 versus Emily Kaplan
Bomani Jones 15956028.4%First show: October 22, 2010; Highest Point Avg.: 23.4 Pts/Show (minimum 100 appearances)
Michael Smith 13645130.2%First show: October 9, 2003; Highest winning percentage (minimum 100 appearances)
Pablo S. Torre 135.7559322.9%First show: October 25, 2012; 2013 Tournament of Champions, most points ever (176) 2nd most points ever (136) most points lost (-336) second lowest score (-286) 9-5 versus Sarah Spain
Clinton Yates12950125.7%First show: September 6, 2017
Sarah Spain 125.543329.0%First show: February 25, 2016; 2017 & 2020 Tournament of Champions; highest score (74); 11-9-1 versus Woody Paige, 14-2 versus Tim Cowlishaw
Mina Kimes 8528929.4%First show: March 30, 2017
Ramona Shelburne 5921627.3%First show: July 2016
Jorge Sedano 46.517127.2%First show: October 19, 2018
Courtney Cronin 4314928.9%First show: June 1, 2022; Won in her debut on the show, first rookie panelist to win Tournament of Champions (2022)
Kate Fagan 4115726.1%First show: October 22, 2014 [22]
Emily Kaplan 3914027.9%First show: May 10, 2019
David Dennis Jr.3817222.1%First show: May 4, 2022; Record for lowest points in a Showdown (-25).
Harry Lyles Jr.3817621.6%First show: October 12, 2021
Justin Tinsley3714825.0%First show: January 28, 2021
Michael Holley 3412028.3%
Jemele Hill 227828.2%
Kevin Clark216731.3%First show: September 22, 2023; Won in his debut on the show.
Monica McNutt 218624.4%First show: February 17, 2021
Elle Duncan 196330.2%First show: June 22, 2020
Jim Armstrong 187524.0%
Bill Barnwell 147119.7%First show: September 15, 2023
Marcel Louis-Jacques134926.5%First show: June 20, 2023; Won in his debut on the show.
T. J. Simers 106515.4%Winner of the first Around the Horn episode
Joon Lee104920.4%First show: April 28, 2021
Gene Wojciechowski 94420.4%
Josh Elliott 52321.7%
Charlie Pierce 51338.5%
LZ Granderson 41921.1%
Jon "Stugotz" Weiner 41625.0%First show: April 1, 2019
Jen Lada 41233.3%First show: June 12, 2024; Won in her debut on the show.
Lindsey Thiry31127.3%First show: September 29, 2023; Won in her debut on the show.
Domonique Foxworth 3837.5%First show: May 9, 2019
David Jacoby3560.0%First show: September 13, 2019
Martenzie Johnson21216.7%First show: February 23, 2023; Won in his debut on the show.
Tony Reali 2728.6%
Adam Schefter 2540.0%
Kimberley A. Martin2450.0%First show: December 15, 2021
Richard Justice 1520.0%
Dianna Russini 1425.0%First show: June 27, 2019
Mark Cuban 11100.0%Guest Panelist
Lil Wayne 11100.0%Guest Panelist
Bruce Arthur11100.0%First Canadian Panelist, First Canadian Winner
Malika Andrews 11100.0%First show: December 12, 2019
Christine Williamson11100.0%First show: October 3, 2023; Won in her debut on the show.
John Powers050.0%
Dan Shanoff 050.0%
Ron Borges 040.0%
Jean Jacques Taylor040.0%
Mark Kiszla020.0%
Andy Katz 010.0%
Bob Glauber 010.0%

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References

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