Scott Van Pelt reveals how close he came to reuniting with Ryen Russillo

Scott Van Pelt doesn’t know if he’s taking the 5 p.m. timeslot on ESPN. He doesn’t have a rundown. He doesn’t have a run of show. He doesn’t know who’d be part of it. But he knows ESPN wants to talk about it, and he knows they came close to making it happen with Ryen Russillo over the summer.

“I have absolutely no idea,” Van Pelt told Jimmy Traina on the SI Media podcast when asked if he’s moving to the old Around the Horn slot. “As we sit here right now, the only thing that was ever discussed — and I don’t want to get too in the weeds with this because I don’t want to speak for him, but it’s been reported. Over the summer, Russillo and I talked about the idea of doing — we did SVP and Russillo years ago — we talked about the idea of could we do it in a TV format?”

The conversation happened. Burke Magnus confirmed it publicly. Van Pelt and Russillo discussed reuniting more than a decade after their ESPN Radio show ended, this time in a 30-minute TV format at 5 p.m. The idea appealed to both of them. Russillo has built a successful podcast career. Van Pelt has cemented himself as one of ESPN’s most valuable talents. Bringing them back together in a different format at a different time in their careers felt like it could work.

It didn’t.

“He has a million different irons in the fire and options, and ultimately, we just couldn’t get there,” Van Pelt said. “He can sort of describe the reasons why; I don’t want to speak for him. Other than I will speak for him in saying both of us were excited about man, wouldn’t this be cool? Because we hadn’t done that show in more than a decade.”

Van Pelt explained the appeal. Russillo has created his own successful lane in podcasting. Reuniting at a different point in their lives in a TV format where they’d have to be more nimble with only 20-some odd minutes of actual content felt challenging and interesting. But Russillo had too many options, too many irons in the fire, and ultimately the logistics didn’t work.

Van Pelt told Traina that the discussions had gone far enough that he started wondering if it would actually happen.

“If it’s being talked about, it’s close to happening,” Van Pelt said. “Because for that to happen at all means it was a possibility. ‘Close to happening’ means were there terms drawn up? No, we didn’t have that, but we’d gone through enough runway that I’m wondering is this going to be a thing?”

The pragmatics mattered. Russillo would have had to uproot his life in Manhattan Beach, potentially shelve other projects, and commit to a daily TV show. Van Pelt wasn’t asking him to do that. But if they looked at the runway and thought about what it could become down the road, whether it could evolve into something more, whether it could be the last thing they do if it succeeded — that was appealing.

“Look at Tony [Kornheiser] and Mike [Wilbon], man, they’ll do it forever, and it’ll be a great show forever,” Van Pelt said. “That, to me, was appealing. The idea of something with someone you really like, and if it succeeded, that could work.”

When that became not the direction this would go, then it became OK, so what would it be? Van Pelt doesn’t know.

ESPN announced in March of last year that Around the Horn would end after 23 years, with the final episode airing May 23. The 5 p.m. slot has been filled with generic SportsCenter episodes ever since. The Athletic’s Andrew Marchand reported in October that Van Pelt was a strong possibility for the permanent replacement, with Peter Schrager and Brian Windhorst also under consideration.

Burke Magnus told The Athletic at the time that ESPN tried to lure Russillo back to reunite with Van Pelt. “That was a bit of a selfish concept by me, because I was such a huge fan of those two when they were together years ago,” Magnus said.

Russillo left ESPN in 2017 after the SVP & Russillo radio show ended in 2015. He joined The Ringer and built his podcast career before moving his show to Barstool Sports last year.

Magnus told Traina in November that ESPN would like Van Pelt to do both — a daily show at 5 p.m. while continuing to host late-night SportsCenter after major events like Monday Night Football. “We would like to have a little bit of both worlds,” Magnus said. “If 5 o’clock happens, Scott would continue to do, let’s take Mondays for example, he’d continue to do Monday Night Countdown on the NFL, and since he’s there, he would also continue to do SportsCenter after Monday Night Football.”

“I love doing the shows that I do after the big events because there’s nothing else like it,” Van Pelt added. “Nothing. And I know that the players, the coaches, and the leagues all appreciate what we do and how we do it. I know that for a fact because I’ve heard from them. And so I don’t want to abandon that, and I wouldn’t.”

But what would 5 p.m. be? Van Pelt doesn’t have the answer. He believes they’ll talk about it because ESPN is interested in talking about it, and he appreciates that they’re interested in talking to him about it. But he’s not doing it just to open up his contract and leverage Stephen A. Smith’s $20 million deal into a bigger number for himself.

Van Pelt claimed the money never interested him the way it interests Stephen A. Smith, and that’s fine. He doesn’t care about anybody’s money. He doesn’t understand pocket watching people. When he heard Tom Brady was getting $375 million from Fox, he thought it was unbelievable and then put it away. When he sees Brady doing Pizza Hut ads, he wonders if Brady really needs the money, but that’s the extent of his interest in what other people make.

“You get what you can get, and you be happy with what you can get, and you should get as much as you can get,” Van Pelt said. “That’s my philosophy on it.”

Van Pelt told Traina he’s more interested in the format than the money. Would he go from an hour to half an hour? Would there be more eyeballs at 5 p.m. than at midnight? His late-night SportsCenter is ESPN’s highest-rated studio show because it follows games, so he wouldn’t necessarily have more eyeballs at 5 p.m.

“I’m as famous as I need to be,” Van Pelt said. “I don’t say that to be a prick, but I’m 6-6, and I’m bald, and I’ve done this 25 years,” Van Pelt said. “I go out in the world and people know who you are. I’m not worried about the numbers of people at 5 or 11. All that matters to me is it a show I want to do?”