Michael Strahan’s time throughout the spotlight might merely have ended when he walked away from the NFL in 2008. In the end, it’s pretty laborious to excessive a 15-year run with the New York Giants that landed him in seven Skilled Bowls and culminated in a Super Bowl upset win over the New England Patriots.
“Your occupation is over everytime you’re nonetheless very youthful,” he says. “I was 36 after I retired!” Nevertheless Strahan knew he had further to appreciate.
As a result of it appears, Constance Schwartz-Morini, a razor-sharp alum of the NFL and experience firm The Company, observed Strahan’s potential for greatness off the sphere. She’d tapped him to emcee a golf occasion throughout the ’90s, they normally turned lifelong buddies. Beneath her steering, Strahan revamped his mannequin and branched into TV, first becoming an analyst on “Fox NFL Sunday” after which landing the coveted web internet hosting gig reverse Kelly Ripa on the syndicated morning current “Keep With Kelly and Michael.”
“I title her the boss, because of she is the boss,” Strahan says of Schwartz-Morini, together with he’s realized increased than to question her sage advice. “She’s higher than seemingly correct,” he quips.
Inside the years since, Strahan has reworked from a defensive end to a powerful multi-hyphenate,
becoming an author, an entrepreneur and one of many important seen faces on TV, web internet hosting “Good Morning America” and “The $100,000 Pyramid” on ABC.
After crafting that white-hot second act, Schwartz-Morini and Strahan set about mimicking that success for others. They’re charting a model new course for the stylish athlete by SMAC Leisure, the all-in-one experience administration, manufacturing and mannequin incubation agency they primarily based in 2011.
“People would try to pigeonhole and say, ‘You’re solely going to do this,’” Schwartz-Morini remembers. “The long term is with the power to weave all of this collectively.”
Just a few years prior to now, many athletes’ solely post-retirement chance was vying for a commentator operate on neighborhood TV or a podcast. SMAC objectives to open further doorways for them.
Take Deion Sanders. Due to SMAC, the earlier skilled soccer and baseball participant has added “docuseries star” to his résumé. Followers can comply along with his new chapter as a college soccer head coach (first for the Jackson State Tigers and now for the Colorado Buffaloes) throughout the sequence “Coach Prime,” which returns for its third season on Prime Video in early 2025.
Deion Sanders in “Coach Prime”
Courtesy of Prime Video
Sanders has moreover entered into worthwhile partnerships with producers like Nike, Blenders and RedCon1 to advertise each half from sunglasses to protein powder. “Coach Prime’s cleats have been on fire this week,” Schwartz-Morini says. “So many top-level NFL avid gamers have been sporting them.”
SMAC’s roster of buyers, which includes Nikki and Brie Garcia, Stefon Diggs and Tony Gonzalez, has expanded to further than merely athletes. Rappers Frequent and Wiz Khalifa, sports activities actions commentator Erin Andrews and model Camille Kostek are among the many many leisure figures rounding out the guidelines.
SMAC’s secret sauce, Schwartz-Morini says, is its in-house manufacturing sources, which permit buyers to fulfill their wide-ranging aims.
“Experience is elevating their arms and shouting from the mountaintops, ‘We’re higher than just one issue. We have to produce initiatives,’” says FredAnthony Smith, who joined SMAC two years prior to now as its unscripted enchancment chief.
Amongst these productions is the just-released Prime Video sequence “Evolution of the Black Quarterback,” by which Michael Vick goes on a cross-country journey to find the connections between Black quarterbacks and American social historic previous — and shows on the personal avenue he’s traveled.
Michael Vick and Doug Williams in “Evolution of the Black Quarterback”
Amazon Studios
The SMAC workforce doesn’t dwell on the success of 1 sequence sooner than shifting on to the next. From now
until January, they’ve a model new current launching every month, along with “Black Comedy in America” on Vice and a “Madden” on-line recreation docuseries for Prime Video. “We’re tiny and mighty, and our heads are always down,” Schwartz-Morini says.
“It appears as if a short time for a lot of, nonetheless it’s been a grind,” Strahan supplies. “I merely marvel at Con’s tenacity. The boss led the best way during which.”
What’s subsequent throughout the SMAC pipeline?
“Black Comedy in America”
Vice — Oct. 15
This docuseries, hosted by Tiffany Haddish, Chris Spencer and Ryan Davis, examines the historic previous of African American comedy’s have an effect on on America.
Untitled ‘Madden’ Video Recreation Doc Assortment
Prime Video — Fall 2024
The sequence explores the historic previous of the ‘Madden’ on-line recreation, along with the origins of Digital Arts and the efforts to influence John Madden to return again onboard.
“Coach Prime” Season 3
Prime Video — Early 2025
School of Colorado Boulder soccer coach Deion Sanders returns for another outing, this time joined by his son Shedeur and top-ranked prospect Travis Hunter, as a result of the Buffaloes switch to the Giant 12.
