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South Florida’s favorite class clown will be at the center of the sporting world on Wednesday, July 15, as Marcello Hernández emcees ESPN’s annual ESPY (Excellence in Sports Performance Yearly) Awards in New York City.
The former Belen Jesuit Preparatory School soccer captain has experienced a meteoric rise in popularity, from posting comedy videos for Only in Dade’s social media accounts to becoming a scene-stealing star on “Saturday Night Live” (“SNL”). The ESPYs gig marks Hernández’s first major hosting job since he became one of comedy’s marquee names after his “SNL” debut in 2022; it also continues the long-running tradition of “SNL” alumni hosting the ESPYs, with Hernández set to become the sixth after Dennis Miller, Norm Macdonald, Seth Meyers, Rob Riggle, and Tracy Morgan.
The fan-voted ESPY Awards launched in 1993 to reward the best athletes, teams, and sports moments of the year in professional and college athletics. Categories include Best Team (in any sport), Best Player by League, Best Men and Women Athletes, Best Championship Performance, Best Play, and others.
And while the show is meant to be a fun, light-hearted way for athletes and fans to recap the past year, it doesn’t always end without controversy. Last year’s host comedian Shane Gillis rubbed many viewers the wrong way, joking that WNBA superstar Caitlin Clark is going to retire to “work at a Waffle House so she can continue doing what she loves most: fist-fighting Black women.” Such jokes prompted negative reviews, including from The Hollywood Reporter, which wrote that “the problem wasn’t non-PC jokes, it was the bad non-PC jokes.”
While it’s unclear what Hernández will touch upon in his monologue (his time as a young soccer player in Miami is a safe bet), it’s unlikely he’ll go the edgelord Gillis route. In his stand-up Netflix special “American Boy,” Hernández primarily jokes about being raised by women in South Florida, with bits focused on the differences between his Latino family and his American surroundings.
