Sometimes, Adam Schefter wants to let it fly.
ESPN’s top NFL reporter told “The Marchand Sports Media” podcast that sometimes he needs something a bit more stimulating after breaking news for 35 years.
“Interact with people outside your normal world,” Schefter said while explaining that he enjoys doing things other than simply breaking news on television and social media.
“It’s refreshing. I love stepping out of this zone, on the rare occasion that I can. I like being let out of the cage. And ESPN doesn’t let me out of the cage very often.”
Schefter fondly recalled working as a sideline reporter during an NBA game when LeBron James was in Cleveland.
“I was doing a Cleveland Cavaliers game on a Friday night in late March, and I’m in the hall, and LeBron walks past, and he goes, ‘What are you doing here, did you get lost?’” Schefter said.
Schefter is hoping for more opportunities in the field.
“Things like that, that get your juices going a little bit. I love what I do, and I’ll do it for a long time,” Schefter said. “But I love to feel the energy of something that is not familiar to you. That you have not done for 35 years. Where it’s new faces in a new place. That to me is a little bit stimulating.”
Schefter added on the podcast that he did not want to leave the NFL Network when he did in 2009, but a salary disagreement forced his hand and he left for ESPN.
Schefter signed a multi-year extension with ESPN worth $9 million a year in 2022, around the same time that ex-reporter Adrian Wojnarowski did.
Wojnarowski left the NBA reporting world and ESPN after a cancer diagnosis, while also saying he wanted his life back because the newsbreaking job required an obsessive nature.
After Wojnarowski’s retirement from the profession, Schefter went on a similarly pᴀssionate rant about his career.
“He didn’t want to have to, as we had to do in the past, take a shower with your phone up against the shower door so you can see a text that’s coming in or take your phone with you to the urinal and hold it in one hand while you take care of your business in the other. That’s the life that we live. And that was the life he chose not to do any longer because it takes over your life.”
Many poked fun at Schefter for complaining about the number of hours he works while making such a hefty salary.
