Shaquille O'Neal on Thursday hinted that he "was going to work for ESPN," according to the N.Y. POST. One day after announcing his retirement from the NBA, O'Neal tweeted a link to a video posted on the social media site Tout.com, during which he indicated that he "had just been offered a position" by ESPN. O'Neal said in the short video, "I'm sitting here with my agent Perry Rogers. He just gave me some good news. A certain network wants to hire me." O'Neal then sang ESPN's "SportsCenter" theme music. He has been "expected to take a job on TV as a basketball commentator," and the "only question was which network would pick him up first" (N.Y. POST, 6/3). ESPN.com's Bill Simmons said of O'Neal, "I can see him going into the studio and either being terrible or great with no in-between." ESPN's Michael Wilbon: "Our bosses are probably among those talking to Shaquille O’Neal to figure out where he’s going to land, whether it’s going to be as an analyst on television in a more conventional mainstream media capacity. I do think he’s going to potentially have a show where he has a badge and there’s some chase scenes, and he’ll have some reality deal" ("PTI," ESPN, 6/2). ESPN Exec VP & Exec Editor John Walsh during an online chat with fans answered a question about O'Neal possibly joining the network. He wrote, "ESPN, like all other broadcast sports networks, looks into the retirements of star players from any sport that we are televising. If Shaq, independent of his proclaimed career as a man of the law, would entertain the possibility of a career in broadcasting, we certainly would be interested having a conversation" (ESPN.com, 6/2).
CLOUT FOR TOUT: CNBC.com's Darren Rovell noted O'Neal "gave a huge boost" to the upstart Tout on Wednesday by using the video site to announce his retirement. O'Neal's retirement video "reportedly gave Tout, which launched a little more than a month ago, 500,000 views in the first three hours." Rogers said that the "process actually began last month when O'Neal discovered the site." Rogers contacted Tout CEO Michael Downing, and the two reached a deal: O'Neal would "announce his retirement by posting a Tout video to his more than 3.8 million Twitter followers," and in turn would "get a seat on the company's advisory board and get a small equity stake in the company." Rogers would not disclose the size of O'Neal's stake in Tout (CNBC.com, 6/2). Since posting his retirement video on Wednesday, O'Neal has tweeted 16 more Tout links (THE DAILY).
THE BIG ENDORSER: O'Neal is widely considered one of the most marketable athletes ever despite his size, and he said, "One day in marketing class at LSU, a professor told me that big guys don’t sell, so I wanted to dispel that myth, first of all. Second of all, if you know anything about me, you know I’m a little kid inside a big guy’s body. I’ve always been a class clown." He added, "Everything you see with me is real. I designed my first commercial, ‘Don’t Fake the Funk on the Nasty Dunk,’ I designed all of my commercials for 19 years, and it was just me being me. I always said to myself, ‘If I’m going to do it, I’m going to do it my way’” ("Mike & Mike in the Morning," ESPN Radio, 6/3).
