Michael Strahan’s time inside the spotlight might merely have ended when he walked away from the NFL in 2008. In any case, 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 Large Bowl upset win over the New England Patriots.

“Your career is over everytime you’re nonetheless very youthful,” he says. “I was 36 after I retired!” Nonetheless Strahan knew he had further to comprehend.

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 inside the ’90s, they normally turned lifelong buddies. Under her steering, Strahan revamped his mannequin and branched into TV, first turning into 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, on account of she is the boss,” Strahan says of Schwartz-Morini, together with he’s realized greater than to question her sage advice. “She’s higher than seemingly correct,” he quips.

Throughout the years since, Strahan has reworked from a defensive end to a powerful multi-hyphenate,
turning into 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 try this,’” Schwartz-Morini remembers. “The long term is with the flexibility to weave all of this collectively.”

Just a few years up to now, many athletes’ solely post-retirement chance was vying for a commentator operate on group TV or a podcast. SMAC targets 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) inside the sequence “Coach Prime,” which returns for its third season on Prime Video in early 2025.

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 consumers, 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 consumers to fulfill their wide-ranging targets.

“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 up 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 private road he’s traveled.

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 seems as if a short time for a lot of, however it’s been a grind,” Strahan gives. “I merely marvel at Con’s tenacity. The boss led the best way wherein.”

What’s subsequent inside 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 steer John Madden to come back again onboard.

“Coach Prime” Season 3
Prime Video — Early 2025
School of Colorado Boulder soccer coach Deion Sanders returns for yet another outing, this time joined by his son Shedeur and top-ranked prospect Travis Hunter, as a result of the Buffaloes switch to the Massive 12.