ESPN’s Mina Kimes Makes False Claims About OutKick, Can’t Back Them Up: Clay Travis
Yesterday evening, as if often the case, I hopped on OutKick to check the latest stories and saw that ESPN's Mina Kimes had written a text message accusing OutKick of spreading horrible lies and racism against her and her family. The text message was sent to one of OutKick's writers, John Simmons, who was asking for any additional comment after Kimes and Michelle Tafoya argued about Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz.
For those of you who are not hyper online, earlier this week Kimes went on a podcast and praised Walz's masculinity.
Evidently, Kimes likes her men to put tampons in boys' bathrooms, desert his soldiers when they're deployed to a combat zone, permit cities to burn and businesses to be destroyed, defund the police, and be a lackey for China.
To each their own.
But this was par for the course for Kimes, a far left-winger who has regularly endorsed far left wing political candidates during her time at ESPN. OutKick has consistently advocated for everyone's right to endorse any political candidate or political cause they want, so long as the standards are evenly applied.
But they have never been evenly applied, right-wingers get fired and left-wingers get promoted at ESPN. Over and over and over.
Think about this -- not one single current ESPN employee has publicly said they are voting for Donald Trump this fall.
Or in 2020.
Whatever your thoughts are about Trump, at least half the nation is voting for him. Sports fans as a group will likely vote for him over Kamala. Certainly the vast majority of the fans in the stadiums in ESPN's college partner, the SEC, will be voting for Trump. (I'd wager the crowds in SEC stadiums on a Saturday will be voting Trump 75-25.) So it's not just that many sports fans will be voting Trump, it's that a huge majority of the people ESPN is making money off of will be too.
You would think it would make sense not to alienate at least half the country.
After all, as Michael Jordan said, "Republicans buy sneakers too."
Mina Kimes Benefits From ESPN's Leftism
But there isn't a single ESPN employee publicly supporting Trump this election season. (Sidenote: I know MANY ESPN employees who will be voting Trump. But they all tell me the company would lose its mind if they went public with it.)
So Kimes has, for years, been exploiting a clear double standard. She can say whatever she wants about politics, but her colleagues who support Trump are muzzled. That's bad for ESPN, bad for sports media, and artificially distorts the marketplace of ideas, which is bad for our country.
READ: ESPN's Mina Kimes' Weak Response To Clay Travis Shows She Cannot Handle Criticism
Now, look, I'm voting for Trump in 2024. And I voted for Trump in 2020. To me, it isn't a hard choice. But I'm sure there are some OutKick employees who are voting for Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and even some Kamala Harris supporters here. After all, when a company gets big enough, it's impossible for everyone to have a functional brain.
But, and I mean this honestly, if any of our employees endorse a political candidate, even if it's someone other than Trump, it won't impact their standing here.
Why?
Because we care about the work, and we believe in the marketplace of ideas.
That's it.
Now if you stink at your job and you're voting Kamala? Well, it might be time to update the resume.
But that's a decision for Fox now, not me.
Regardless, Kimes endorsing a far left wing Minnesota governor and a far left-wing president is news only because of ESPN's clear double standard when it comes to politics.
That's even more the case this week when people like Sam Ponder, who say radical things like women's sports should only be played by actual women, are getting fired and left-wingers like Mina Kimes are getting multi-million dollar raises.
Mina Kimes made baseless claims against OutKick then went silent. (Photo by Grant Lamos IV/Getty Images for AWXII)
What got my attention yesterday wasn't ESPN's blatant hypocrisy on politics -- it was Kimes's text message to one of our writers.
Kimes wrote as follows:
"Hi John, I don't have a comment for you, but I do hope you know that your horrible lies about me have led to racism and harassment towards me and my family for some time now. Please don't ever text me again."
Credit to John for the diabolical "Thanks for the response!" response, by the way.
When I saw this attack from Mina, I hopped on the handy search function on OutKick and searched out "Mina Kimes" there. There were 17 results, three of them were from this year. Two about her endorsement of Walz and the hypocrisy of ESPN and one about Kimes ripping Aaron Rodgers for refusing to get the (worthless) Covid "vaccine." Given that OutKick has published thousands of articles this year, that doesn't seem like a ton of coverage.
For comparison's sake, we have, and I'm not making this up, 398 stories about LSU gymnast Oliva Dunne.
Okay, so there are three stories about Kimes so far this year out of thousands we've published. And all three of them deal with opinions she shared in public. So we opined on her opinions, which is, you know, kind of the job.
What about last year?
Well, last year we wrote about Dan LeBatard ripping me and Outkick for how we cover women, Mina Kimes in particular. (I'll come back to this one). Then we had a couple of articles about Mina Kimes getting paid millions of dollars in a new contract -- congrats! -- and an article about her having a baby and looking good on the red carpet at the ESPY's. (How dare we!)
Then there is an article about a Boston radio guy getting suspended for his comments about Kimes, which was a story everyone covered.
That was 2023.
Back in 2022, we had an article about Mina Kimes endorsing a left-winger for Los Angeles mayor and posting about it on social media, along with a photo of her and the mayor. This, again, is pretty significant news given ESPN supposedly doesn't allow these sorts of endorsements and has suspended other employees for prior political activism. But, again, this is simply reacting to news Kimes chose to make.
She was in the Woke All-Star Challenge as a number one seed in 2022 -- honestly, she's just not famous enough to have won yet, but I like her chances in 2025,
Then we wrote about former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Jeff Garcia criticizing her.
And in 2022, Bobby Burack wrote about Mina Kimes sharing an email from a troll online saying she wasn't entitled to be an NFL analyst.
That's all of our stories about her that I could find.
If I'm missing any, blame the handy search function.
Essentially, OutKick wrote about stories that would have been sports media stories on any site that covers sports media. And then pointed out that Kimes has been given leeway to support far-left-wing politicians when other ESPN employees have not.
We even covered criticism of me and the site for how we cover Kimes even though, to my knowledge, I've never written anything about Mina Kimes on the site and haven't talked about her very much either. (The LeBatard criticism is a great example of the cry bully style of media coverage. You attack while claiming to be the victim, which is, of course, exactly what Kimes did yesterday when she accused us of lies and fomenting racism against her while providing zero evidence of said behavior.)
Kimes Has Provided No Evidence To Support Her Claims
I fail to see anything wrong with any of our coverage of Kimes.
Kimes is paid millions of dollars in a multi-year contract -- reportedly -- to give her opinions on athletes making millions of dollars a year.
Is it not fair for her to be criticized, at times, just like she criticizes players, coaches and executives in the NFL?
Trust me, if you think Kimes gets tough press coverage, do a Google search on me. I'm not sure anyone has ever written anything nice about me online in twenty years. Almost all the things written about Kimes by contrast, are euphoric in its praise.
But I want to return to her text message. When I saw what she wrote, I asked her on Twitter to please share any examples of "horrible lies" or racism from OutKick so that I could address it.
Later that evening, I clicked on her profile to see if she'd said anything and noticed I was blocked.
Honestly, I don't recall interacting with Kimes much over the years. Indeed, none of the 17 articles on Kimes at OutKick are by me. I seem to recall her ripping my coverage of the Peyton Manning moongate incident years and years ago, but I looked for that in an X, formerly Twitter, search and couldn't find it. Otherwise, I'm not kidding with you when I say, I had no idea she had blocked me, and I've had no reason to notice it for years.
Now if I'd regularly tagged her or constantly interjected myself into her online life, I might understand why she blocked me, but that hasn't ever happened. If she's being honest in saying she blocked me years ago, it would appear she did so because she occasionally saw my opinions on her timeline and she was so bothered by my opinions that she couldn't allow herself to even see them any longer. Which is, sadly, how many people on the left behave.
Yeah, it's strange.
And soft.
Especially for someone who makes millions of dollars analyzing people playing a violent sport she has never played on any level in her entire life.
But others can psychoanalyze that.
Later that night, Kimes unblocked me, evidently, to re-share her text message with me and say, "For starters, you just claimed I blocked you "in response" to the inquiry when you know I've blocked you for years. Here was the reply I sent your lackey that you're referencing. Applies to you, too."
So now I'm directly responsible for the horrible lies and racism by Mina, which is why I'm writing this response on OutKick for all to see, including Kimes, if she deigns to visit this horrid site.
I have two simple questions given the allegations Kimes shared.
1. What are the "horrible lies" OutKick has shared about you, Mina?
A lie is easy to share for all to see, a "horrible lie" even more so.
OutKick has certainly shared opinions about you, but an opinion, as I'm sure you are smart enough to know, is not a lie. You share opinions all day long. In fact, you are paid millions of dollars to do so. All the OutKick writers are paid much less than you to also share their opinions on sports, culture, and more.
If you are going to accuse the site I founded, and used to own, of spreading "horrible lies" about you, I think the least you could do is actually share those lies publicly.
Failure to do so after making the public accusation actually makes you the horrible liar.
2. What "racism and harassment towards me and my family" has OutKick caused?
Since you say our "horrible lies" have caused this treatment, it's incumbent on you to share these horrible lies, otherwise there is no causation here, and you are, alas, a double liar.
But even if you don't share these horrible lies, OutKick isn't responsible for anything anyone on the Internet says.
Just like you aren't responsible for the opinions you share that might lead to player, coach, owner or management online harassment in the NFL.
ESPN's Mina Kimes Fails To See The Hypocrisy
What's happened here is quite clear, a left-winger does what left-wingers often do, equate any difference of opinion as a "horrible lie" that results in racism and harassment.
When asked to provide evidence of these allegations, none is provided whatsoever.
Truth be told, and I'm not being glib here, does anyone even know who Mina Kimes's family is? I've got three kids and a wife. No one's family should ever be attacked for anything, but it really stretches the power of OutKick to infinity level to claim that we are responsible for family harassment of moderately famous NFL analysts on TV.
And the reason I'm writing this is because if OutKick had spread horrible lies about Kimes, it would be everywhere on the Internet. We'd get dragged by every site on the planet. My mentions would be filled with way worse attacks than anything said about Kimes.
But Kimes falsely accuses us of lying, racism and harassment and can't produce a single instance of it despite being asked multiple times and no one in the media will even write about it.
Because it makes a left-winger look bad, Kimes, and a "right wing site," OutKick, look good.
Full disclosure, I've met Mina once to my recollection.
At a CAA Super Bowl party years ago. (We used to have the same agents.)
And I told her face to face that I thought she was really talented on TV and was going to have a really successful career. This was many years before she became a multi-millionaire and I don't typically share private conversations, but since the site is being accused of racism and harassment, I think what the site's founder has actually said to the person making these claims is relevant. And I stand by that, I think she's good at what she does on TV and I don't begrudge anyone getting wealthy off their talents.
After all, I'm a capitalist, not a communist like many of the politicians Mina supports.
But what Mina is doing here is being a cry bully.
She endorsed a political candidate in flagrant violation of ESPN policies. Something that has led to people with right wing beliefs either being fired or suspended from ESPN in the past. That's a clear double standard, one that OutKick has pointed out for years.
Mina Kimes isn't being treated unfairly, she's just being treated fairly. The world is so tilted to the left in sports media -- and she has benefited from that tilt for so long -- that she equates that fairness as an attack.
For the record, I've argued for over a decade that every person, off-air, should be able to endorse any political candidate they want or support any political cause. But for a decade or more, that hasn't been the case at ESPN. They fire anyone conservative and promote anyone liberal.
It's a toxic stew that many at ESPN despise.
But it's much bigger than that, it also creates a toxic atmosphere in sports media, which is super left wing in its orthodoxy, so much so that the sports media marketplace of ideas basically boils down to OutKick vs. every other site. That isn't healthy for the country.
Think about it, only one sports media site on the entire Internet is even willing to write that men who claim to be women shouldn't be able to participate in women's sports.
Only one!
And this is an 80-20 or 90-10 issue for sports fans. The marketplace is completely broken. If I didn't exist and hadn't founded OutKick, there wouldn't be a single sports site on the Internet advocating for the vast majority of sports fans.
It's mind-boggling.
The reason OutKick keeps growing so much through the web, video and audio isn't because we are perfect -- we screw up all the time -- it's because we actually serve the vast majority of sports fans with smart, original, funny and authentic content, which has been the goal of the site since it was founded by me in 2011.
An OutKick Offer To Mina Kimes
What I want to finish this article with is an offer to Mina -- you have an open invite to come on my show and rip me or OutKick to your heart's content for any flaws you see in our coverage of you. What's more, I'll even offer to appear on your own show where you can rip me for your audience's delight, and so long as the entire conversation airs unedited, I'm happy to be there too.
What's more, if that doesn't sound good to you, you can write an article ripping OutKick's coverage of you and pointing out all our flaws, and we will run it on this site for all to see as well.
I don't know how this site -- or its founder -- can be any more transparent in its coverage than this.
Mina Kimes has an open invitation to join me on OutKick The Show.
As I said above, we aren't perfect, but we don't run from attacks, we address them.
The site has never published any horrible lies about Mina Kimes or her family. And we haven't caused any racism against her or her family either.
We've just pointed out the truth: ESPN allows left-wingers to say whatever they want about politics and fires everyone on the right who does the same.
Deep down, I suspect Mina knows this.
But even if she doesn't, all of her colleagues at ESPN voting for Trump know it.
And there are many of them.
OutKick just wants them to have the same freedoms as Mina, which doesn't seem like too much to ask.
The offer is out there, Mina. Looking forward to hearing back from you, I'm easy to find.
In the meantime, OutKick will just keep doing what we do, speaking truth in a fundamentally inauthentic world.