Sarah Spain, Whose Wokeness Helped Kill 'Around the Horn,' Wonders If Wokeness Killed 'Around The Horn'

ESPN will air the final episode of "Around the Horn" on Friday. Host Tony Reali has repeatedly claimed in interviews that he "doesn't understand" why the network decided to cancel the show.

Former panelist and employee Sarah Spain has a theory: wokeness.

"It confounds me that they are canceling it," Spain told the Washington Post. "The format allows for a continuous stream of new people, to highlight reporters on your network. I’m admittedly biased, but this is progressive voices and people of color you’re taking off TV. I don’t know for sure that’s their intention, but are you so scared of getting called ‘woke’?"

She isn't wrong, per se.

Sarah Spain and Sue Bird in Cannes, France in June of 2024. (Photo by Adam Berry/Getty Images for iHeartMedia)

OutKick reported last week that executives grew tired of the show's casting, commentary, and controversies. ESPN executives will tolerate negative press if the commentators generating the controversies are worth it. 

ESPN commentators like Stephen A. Smith and Pat McAfee can get away with saying just about anything, including criticizing their own bosses on air. However, the "Around the Horn" roster included mostly part-time employees, bloggers, and pundits with little value to the company.

And yet, no show has caused more headaches for ESPN execs over the past four years than "Around the Horn." Some of the show's recent headlines include J.A. Adande comparing red state voting laws to genocide in China, Sarah Spain calling religion "bullshit," David Dennis excusing black women for purposely hard-fouling Caitlin Clark, and Mina Kimes criticizing the Trump administration with inaccurate information.

There are many, many more.

People like Adande and Dennis are not worth the stress for top ESPN brass. Interestingly, OutKick was the outlet that exposed the show's, as Spain put it, "wokeness."

However, we put "wokeness" in quotes because Spain's definition is different from the actual. According to Spain, "wokeness" means women and people of color. That's not what "wokeness" means.

In fact, the executive that Reali blamed for canceling the show was Dave Roberts. Roberts is a black man. He is not woke. Both white and black on-air talents tell OutKick that Roberts is perhaps the only executive at ESPN who evaluates talents who work hard and rate well and removes those who don't — regardless of their skin color, gender, or political affiliation.

If only the rest of Disney operated that way. ("The View" should hire Dave Roberts.)

Laura Rutledge is a woman and one of ESPN's most respected studio hosts. She isn't woke. She covers the NFL and college football honestly and doesn't talk about sex education and abortion on air, like some of her colleagues.

"Woke," at least in its current form, refers to a worldview in which the world is split between the oppressed and the oppressors. Such worldview creates an excessive focus on identity, political correctness, gender, race, and victimhood. 

Woke people struggle to separate their zealotry from business. And that's what happened to "Around the Horn."  The panelists were so immersed in their Neo-Marxist ideology that they ignored the spirit of the show. 

As a general rule, when a sports show shills for the Chinese Communist Party, downplays the atrocities that Muslim Uyghurs face, and shames religion, the show has lost the plot.

"Around the Horn" lost the plot. Tony Reali lost control. And "woke" panelists like Sarah Spain lost the point.

Credit where it's due. This week, ESPN canned Stan Verrett and canceled "Around the Horn." ESPN will be a stronger sports network next week.