ESPN host Dan Le Batard’s criticism of his own network’s “stick-to-sports” policy in light of the racist “send her back” chants at President Trump’s re-election rally caused some headaches at the sports media giant.
ESPN commentator Stephen A. Smith emailed Pitaro seeking guidance
I bet Smith is way, way more tolerable in email. Unless he writes everything in all caps, which he probably does.
One bit of BS—-no sane viewer or listener equates the opinions of an ESPN personality as the opinions of ESPN the corporate entity.
“Pitaro seemed to dismiss the idea of sports and political news coverage inevitably bleeding into each other.”
Taking a KNEE ring a bell ?
Here’s my take (which I am sure you’ve all been waiting for!) - I am not a sports fan so I don’t really care about ESPN at all. But as someone who does follow politics more than I should, I do like to have some interests that are 100% politics-free. I keep my Twitter feed 100% neutral and only follow topics of a non-ideological interest (web development, TV shows, all things dog related, fail blog type stuff, etc.). As soon as one of the people I follow gets too political I stop following them. And given my interests, most of the people I follow are on the same page politically as I am so its not a matter of disagreement. I just need a break sometimes.
So, I can see where some ESPN fans are coming from and even the management. They are running a business and sports fans tend to skew much higher on the MAGA scale.
I’m right with you. So let’s cut out the National Anthem from being played before every friggin’ game in every sport. Let’s cut out the military flyovers, the ‘salute to military’ where they ‘surprise’ some soldier with a special appearance. Let’s get American flag patches off of sports uniforms (except for national teams).
In America, sports and politics have always been tightly intertwined. It’s disingenuous of ESPN to pretend otherwise.
Tonya Harding?
Or fighter jets flying in formation over the stadium at the Super Bowl?
The jinormous qualifier there is “sane”.
“he said that he remains attuned to what the network’s viewers want.”
In other words, they don’t want to piss off the rednecks who spend all their non-Faux-News time on ESPN, even watching nonsense like the NFL draft, because it reassures themselves that they’re “manly.” They are tacitly supporting and enabling the GOP/Trump/Faux News use of the sports arena to signal white Christian nationalists, etc. Sometimes there’s right and wrong and it has nothing to do with politics. What ESPN needs is a good dose of a liberal boycott. Make it so.
Oh c’mon ESPN, you’re just not that important.
Pitaro, who has become synonymous with ESPN’s “stick-to-sports” policy upon taking the helm as its president last year, justified the nonpartisan policy by citing Trump’s feud with the NFL dying down.
Does the NFL own ESPN?
I think the best way for ESPN to handle politics is for them to dedicate an hour-long weekday program dealing with it. They could have Keith Olbermann host it, maybe call it Countdown.
There are certain sports stories where you just can’t avoid the political aspect to them say labor relations.
Or take team owners. Many want their states and localities to subsidize their new stadiums even as economists from all over the political spectrum agree upon how wasteful and inefficient it is. The book and blog Field of schemes does a good job cataloging this. As one economist said. “It’s more effective flying a helicopter and dropping cash onto the neighborhood”.
Say there is a story about George Steinbrenner. Do you neglect to mention his conviction for campaign finance violations under Nixon and pardon by Reagan plus restoration of voting rights by none other than the state of Florida? That’s a hat trick of politics right there.
I’d be happy to join your boycott, but as a Boston sports fan (and very lefty progressive) I’ve been boycotting them for years. It’s surprising how people with extremely opposing political views can come together in their disdain for the self-proclaimed Worldwide Leader.
Not exactly, but they DO pwn them.
I’ve been living the boycott. I never watch ESPN. To me, watching sports is watching the game and that’s it, because that’s the whole goddamn point. If I found myself wanting to listen to some asswipe pontificate about a sporting event or player stats, I’d probably go to therapy, it would fail, and then I’d jump off the Tobin Bridge.
The ESPN show Outside the lines gets into the society and business side of sports.
But I do miss me some Olbermann doing his political thing.
