Around the Horn

Around the Horn is a daily, half-hour sports talk program on ESPN filmed in Washington, DC. It airs at 5:00 pm ET, in a sports talk hour with Pardon the Interruption. Around the Horn premiered on November 4, 2002. Its official title is Around the Horn presented by Nissan.

Around the Horn follows a standard format. The host (originally Max Kellerman and now Tony Reali) moderates discussions of various sports topics among four different sports columnists and awards points for good arguments. In addition, he can mute columnists for 10 seconds, which also subtracts a point from their score. He can also subtract points for poor arguments or when contestants try to change the subject. At the end of the second and third rounds of discussion a columnist is eliminated, until only two are left for the final "Showdown" round. The winner of the showdown is given 20 to 30 uninterrupted seconds to comment on any topic they please in a segment called "Face Time" as well as be awarded a gold medal that appears at the top-left corner of the screen.

Rounds

* Introduction: The panelists are introduced and given a first word. Most of the panelists use this time for jokes or criticism of the host or other panelists. Some also take mutes for their comments during this part. Occasionally (usually on Fridays), there are "themed" introductions, including karaoke, "big words", and movie lines. Current host Reali often awards extra points for quotes from Goodfellas or Napoleon Dynamite, and often subtracts points when any panelist makes a joke about his Italian heritage or his close relationship with his mother. (Tim Cowlishaw often makes gratuitous Goodfellas references in a blatant attempt to get extra points, but Reali rarely obliges him.)
* The First Word: Two relevant sports headlines of the day are discussed.
* Buy or Sell: The columnists are asked to buy or sell three different concepts, also drawn from the relevant sports headlines.
* 1st Cut: The contestant with the lowest point total is eliminated. In the case of ties, Reali often breaks them by miscellaneous things, like whose hair is better combed and what not.
* Out of Bounds: The remaining columnists discuss off-the-field sports issues or American popular culture (favorite movies, best pop divas, etc.), often including quasi-sports stories or other controversial issues. This segment will sometimes be used to tackle a more serious subject than the others, such as gambling scandals or other substantial topics.
* 2nd Cut The next contestant with the lowest point total is removed, leaving just two.
* Showdown Mentioned above, the two remaining columnists take sides on any sports or cultural stories remaining. The winner is determined in a best-of-three set of questions, though there have been contestants that lost up 2-0. There are two or three questions, depending on the amount of time left (some shows only have two questions total when pressed for time), or (usually) whether a tie-breaker is necessary. The third topic is sometimes - though not always - a non-sports related issue, usually dealing in some way with pop culture. In rare cases, Reali has decided to give a contestant the win after only one topic. One example is when Bill Plaschke and Woody Paige were disscussing snowboarding in the Olympics. While Paige gave a fantastic argument, Plaschke did not answer the topic and changed the subject to Sasha Cohen and her silver medal. Reali felt that the difference in argument quality between Bill and Woody was so lopsided toward Woody that he punished Bill by giving Woody 5 points and the win while giving Bill -3 points and hitting his Mute button several times, despite the fact that there were two more topics left.
* Facetime: The winner of the showdown and therefore winner of that particular episode gets 30 seconds to talk about anything he/she wishes to discuss. Most of the time these are sports related, but often their own personal life or an issue in pop culture is discussed. For example in a May 2006 episode Michael Smith made a tribute to his newborn baby girl.
* Paper Toss: Signature sign off of the show with Reali throwing paper at the camera.

Points

The show is unique as it "scores the argument." The awarding of points is done at the discretion of the host. In the Kellerman era, the two final contestants generally had about 25 points. Before becoming host, Tony Reali as a guest host awarded a show record 51 points to Bill Plaschke. Reali is now much stingier in awarding points. The two finalists rarely have more than 30 points at the end of the show. Reali also makes bets occasionally with the panelists on sporting events, with the panelist gaining or losing a large amount of points based on the outcome. One memorable example: Jay Mariotti made a bold guarantee in the fall of 2005, stating he'd be docked 30 points if he was wrong. When he turned out to be incorrect, he was so far behind that he failed to even reach positive figures before being eliminated. Points are also taken away for self-promotion ("the mating call of the mute button"). Then in June of 2006, Tim Cowlishaw guaranteed an Edmonton Oilers win in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals, and lost 15 points for it. In both incidents, the panelist failed to make it past the first elimination.

The rewarding- and deduction- of points has changed throughout the series. Originally, being muted cost a panelist five points. Later, while Kellerman was still hosting the show, the scoring was at its most strict: "good" answers were awarded two points, "great" answers were given three, and a mute subtracted three points from a panelist's score. Around the time Reali took over the show, the host was allowed to give points at his own discretion (Reali may give a single point for a weak argument, or many points for a particularly strong case backed by statistical information), and the penalty for a mute was reduced to a single point.

Hosts

* Max Kellerman (November 4, 2002- January 30, 2004)
* Tony Reali (February 2, 2004 - present)
* Zachariah Selwyn (guest host from June 8-11, 2004)
* Duke Castiglione (guest host from July 3-5, 2006)

Panelists

Current panelists

* J.A. Adande, Los Angeles Times
* Jim Armstrong, The Denver Post
* Kevin Blackistone, The Dallas Morning News
* Tim Cowlishaw, The Dallas Morning News
* Jackie MacMullan, The Boston Globe
* Jay Mariotti, Chicago Sun-Times
* Woody Paige, Cold Pizza
* Bill Plaschke, Los Angeles Times
* Bob Ryan, The Boston Globe
* Michael Smith, ESPN.com columnist

Former panelists

* Charlie Pierce, Boston Globe
* Tony Reali, ESPN
* T.J. Simers, Los Angeles Times

Guest panelists

* Ron Borges, The Boston Globe
* Mark Cuban, Dallas Mavericks owner
* Josh Elliott, ESPN
* Michael Holley, former Boston Globe columnist
* Richard Justice, Houston Chronicle
* Mark Kiszla, The Denver Post
* John Powers, The Boston Globe
* Adam Schefter, The Denver Post
* Dan Shanoff, ESPN.com columnist
* Gene Wojciechowski, ESPN.com columnist

Running gags

*Inside Information: Panelists try to milk Reali's love of the inside scoop for points.
*Look at the Schedule: Panelists, most frequently Paige, base their predictions on the upcoming schedule for a team, and they are either ridiculed or rewarded for it, based on relevance.
*Woody's age: At 60, Paige is easily the oldest of the regular panelists, although semi-regular Bob Ryan is four months older. Cowlishaw and Plaschke are 50, Mariotti is 45, Smith is 36, Adande and Blackistone are 35, and Reali is only 28. Woody is often asked what it was like to interview such long-ago sports figures as Cy Young, Connie Mack, and Knute Rockne.
*Reverend Bill: Plaschke's frequent moralizing produces comparisons, especially from Paige, to a prudish clergyman.
*Texas Tim: Cowlishaw often hypes the Dallas-area teams, the University of Texas football team, and Texas native Roger Clemens. Cowlishaw is the only regular who is actually from the area he represents in journalism: Mariotti is from Pittsburgh, Paige is from Memphis, Adande is from Chicago, Blackistone is from the Washington, D.C. area, Smith is from New Orleans, Ryan is from Trenton, New Jersey, and Plaschke is from Louisville.
*Tony on Camera: As the sponsors are flashing up on screen between segments, you can occasionally see Reali in a variety of activitites at his desk, i.e., getting shoes shined, being carried to his desk, or jumping up and down.
*Shush!: Sometimes Plaschke will attempt to "mute" the other panelists by yelling, "Shush!" This usually doesn't work.
*East Coast Bias: Los Angeles Times columnists Adande and Plaschke frequently blast the network for buying into the sports world's bias of popular East Coast teams, and Reali's supposed bias towards East Coast columnists. Adande and especially Plaschke, however, tend to hype their city's home teams more than the others, perhaps as a way of (over-)compensating.
*The J.A. Adande Lounge: When Adande wins, he starts his Face Time with "Welcome to the J.A. Adande Lounge here in Los Angeles..." and names various celebrities who are "on hand," some of whom are actually connected with sports. On one occasion, when the showdown came down to Adande and Smith, Smith said, "The lounge is closed today!" Adande won anyway.
*Ties: Reali will occasionally chide a panelist (or multiple panelists) for not wearing a tie. On occasion, all four panelists will be tieless. The fact that Reali sometimes wears pink ties seems to escape criticism.
*Blackistone is the Word: Blackistone making a predictable comment before the show, most frequently "What's happenin' Tony?", often worthy of a few points. Tony replies with, "Everything is everything."
*Culture Clash: Anyone, but usually Mariotti, making a jab at Reali's Italian roots or attire. This is usually directed right back at the panelists, particularly Smith and Paige. On the 7/24/06 show, Tony blasted the panel for their lack of style, and asked whether Woody was wearing a shower curtain and if Cowlishaw was wearing a pajama shirt.
*Good Looking Man: Term used by Reali when talking about Andy Pettitte (who bears a resemblance to Reali) or any Italian athletes (such as the Italian World Cup Soccer team).
*Movie Quotes: Panelists are frequently rewarded by Reali with points for quoting pop culture movies such as The Karate Kid ("Sweep the Leg"), or A Few Good Men. Sometimes this manifests itself in "Movie Line Friday," where the panelists try to give Reali the best possible movie quote in an effort to get a head-start on points, although sometimes the panelist will get muted.
*Karaoke Friday: As with "Movie Line Friday," the panelists try to give brief musical performances worthy of point head-starts. Neither "Movie Line Friday" nor "Karaoke Friday" is a regular feature, however.
*Conspiracies: The other panelists often jump on Plaschke and Cowlishaw for buying into every conspiracy theory, whether they're on the show or not.
*Stat Punk: Paige often makes a play on words of Reali's nickname, usually resulting in a deduction of his score before the game even begins.
*Woody's Career: Making fun of how Paige's career revolves around the show, since he's stopped writing professionally.
*Everybody Hates Woody: Paige makes some sort of ridiculous pun or prop gesture just before a cut, and is deducted down to whatever the lowest number needed to get him off of the show.
*Gene...: Reali complaining about how Wojciechowski's name doesn't fit on the screen.
*Smith's rapping: Michael Smith frequently uses his time during the Introduction to quote recently-popular and classic hip hop songs, especially those by East Coast rappers. This occasionally nets him bonus points.

Miscellaneous

* As ESPN's schedule is made erratic to accommodate the irregular times of the various sports events that it covers, it is quite common for regular shows to be "bumped" by events. To let the audience know of these postponements, most ESPN talk show hosts end the program by telling the audience when their next show will air. Reali (as did Kellerman) idiosyncratically ends the show by saying how much time will elapse before the next show. The most common of these statements is "We're on a twenty-three and a half hour break," which signifies that the show will be back tomorrow at its usual time.
* Woody Paige, since his move to New York, always humorously has an odd, non sequitur phrase written on a little chalkboard behind him.
*In the original format, there were no eliminations and no Final Showdown, and the top three point-getters would receive Gold, Silver and Bronze medals, and would get 15 seconds, 10 second and 5 seconds to speak respectively. This proved to be unwieldy and awkward. The current format was the resulting fix.
*During the Max Kellerman era and shortly thereafter, every segment would conclude with some way to end a sentence with "around", so "disembodied voice" Bill Wolff could add "...the horn!" This idiosyncrasy remains on the show today in a slightly modified fashion, as Reali often attempts to end a segment with either "around" or a word that rhymes with it before yelling "Horn!" right before the cut to commercial.
*Apparently, both Max Kellerman and Tony Reali were huge fans of the video for Beyoncé's smash hit from 2003, Crazy in Love. During one year-long period extending into both of their tenures as host, a segment from the Crazy in Love video was always shown on Fridays, during an "outtro" to a commercial break about halfway through the episode.
*During the July 18, 2006 episode of Around the Horn, Tony Reali allowed Tim Cowlishaw to select the winner of the showdown. The question related to Cowlishaw and he chose J.A. Adande's response over Woody Paige's answer.
*Throughout the August 3, 2006 episode, Woody Paige drank an entire 5 gallon water cooler bottle, barely finishing it as winner Kevin Blackistone's face time expired. Reali told Paige at the beginning of the show that if Paige were to finish the whole bottle in 30 minutes, he would get 100 points the next show. The next day, Reali revealed that cameras were installed in Woody's studio, which showed him pouring water from the bottle into a cooler. Because of his cheating, Reali gave him a mute instead of the points.
Around the Horn Group. Woody Paige, Tony Reali, Bob Ryan, Tim Cowlishaw, and J.A. Adande read and reply daily to fan emails and questions. http://sports.groups.yahoo.com/group/ESPNsAroundTheHorn/

Around the Horn unofficial statistics

As of 07/27/2006 (793 episodes)

External links

*"The Largest Around the Horn Group on the web"
*ESPN: Around the Horn
*Around the Horn Episode Guide at TV.com
*An Around the Horn fan clubBecome a registered member of the Around the Horn fan club.And it's free.http://www.ezboard.com/registration/userregistration_global.html

Around the Horn: Encyclopedia BETA

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