Max Kellerman says his exceptional debate skills may have cost him his First Take gig.
More than four years after he was removed from the ESPN program, the sports commentator shed more light on his departure and rumored rift with First Take host Stephen A. Smith. As many fans know, Kellerman began hosting the series alongside Smith and Molly Qerim in 2016, but was let go at the former’s request in late 2021. Kellerman addressed his exit during a recent appearance on The Bill Simmons Podcast, suggesting Smith wanted him off the program because he was simply too good at arguing.
“If you’re doing a debate show and you’re a competitive person, why would you want me as a partner? That’s bad,” he told Simmons. “You want to go 15 rounds every day with ‘Muhammad Kellerman’? That’s just bad. It’s embarrassing.”
He continued: “It’s a debate show. ‘I have an idea. This is what I want to put on TV: I want to spar Bud Crawford every day for 15 rounds, and I want everyone to see it.’ Eventually, you’re gonna say, ‘I don’t want to do it anymore.’”
But Kellerman suspected there was another big factor that led to his First Take firing. He told Simmons that Smith may have wanted him off the program to establish his status as the lead host, which would give him more leverage when it came to salary negotiations.
“That’s one aspect of it. There are others,” he said. “That’s what I could tell you from my point of view. I also think that if you make a calculation, that if you can be perceived as a solo act, really, that you can get paid at a certain level that you can’t if you’re not a solo act… or at least perceived that way.”
Smith addressed Kellerman’s First Take departure in 2023, insisting he had no hard feelings toward his former host; he just believed the show was suffering from their lack of chemistry. In fact, he said the whole situation made him “kind of sad.”
“I don’t want anybody to assume Max Kellerman doesn’t work hard, Max Kellerman is a bad person, Max Kellerman is not somebody anybody should want to work with,” he explained on the Dan Le Batard Show. “That’s not what that was about. It was about the fact that a debate show requires certain things that I believe he did not bring to the table when it came to sitting opposite of me… Max Kellerman and I, as far as I was concerned, did not work for me. It was not a show that I wanted to be a part of for the years to come."