ESPN Completely Avoided Trump, The Election: Bobby Burack
Give ESPN credit. The sports network has completely sat out of the 2024 election.
As Puck first reported on Thursday, the network has not mentioned Donald Trump, Kamala Harris, or the election on air this week. ESPN talents have also avoided the topics on their personal social media pages.
The development is surprising.
Despite ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro ensuring staffers and outsiders in 2017 that ESPN is not a "political organization," the network has long struggled to exclude politics from its sports coverage.
Recent examples include Elle Duncan protesting the erroneously dubbed "Don't Say Gay" bill, Malika Andrews tearing up during the NBA Draft over the Supreme Court giving abortion laws back to the states, Mina Kimes praising Tim Walz's "masculinity," Mark Jones sharing a post referring to "MAGA women" as "skanks," and J.A. Adande egregiously comparing red state voting laws to genocide in China.
Adande and Jones should have been fired, but were not.
While sources within ESPN tell OutKick that Pitaro and management are not pleased when talents discuss political issues that are unrelated to sports, the Disney-owned corporation has remained cognizant of punishing them, as most talents who violate the unwritten policy are black and/or women.
However, sources add that ESPN did send a memo to staffers last week encouraging them to avoid political discourse about the election unless it was unavoidable in sports.
The bar for "unavoidable" was quite high. Namely, the network ignored 49ers star Nick Bosa wearing a "Make America Great Again" after the team's win over Dallas.
ESPN talents took the warning seriously. ESPN declined to comment when reached by OutKick on Friday.
Understand that the vast, vast majority of on-air personalities do not like Trump and are thus aching this week. Granted, readers would be surprised to know there's a decent number of ESPN employees who have admitted to OutKick that they voted for Trump. (Good for them.)
ESPN's edict to stick to sports this week should pay off, so long as it continues.
But OutKick covers sports and politics. Don't be a hypocrite, Bobby!
Happy to address.
Scott Van Pelt, Stephen A. Smith, Mike Greenberg (Getty Images)
OutKick is a sports and political brand. Our mission is not to reach the broadest group of sports fans in America like ESPN's is.
Our mission is to represent the readers whom the mainstream media mostly dismisses. Hence, our numbers go up with sports and politics crossover and ESPN's go down.
Politics is bad business for ESPN. The channel experienced several viewership declines in 2016-2017 when the company, as a unit, defended Colin Kaepernick as he slandered American police officers as "pigs."
There's an argument that ESPN could have avoided political backlash had it represented both sides of the political aisle. But other than Will Cain, who departed in 2020 for Fox News, ESPN has failed to establish an even moderately conservative voice on-air.
That's problematic in a country in which Donald Trump just won the popular vote, and made notable gains with young men, women, Hispanics, and black Americans – three demographics important to ESPN's growth.
Still, the best business play for ESPN is the approach it took this week: to keep its coverage apolitical.
Notably, Mike Greenberg's "Get Up" morning program was one of the few shows at the network to show viewership growth from October 2023 to October 2024, the final month before the presidential election. That's not a coincidence. Greenberg has a reputation among viewers. From "Mike & Mike" to "Get Up," Greenberg has always provided sports fans with a much-needed escape.
On Wednesday morning, hours after Donald Trump's victory speech, Greenberg promised viewers the day after the election would be no different.
"If you are choosing to turn ESPN on your television today, it is because you are begging for a reprieve," Greenberg opened the show.
"You want someone to talk about football, which feels very normal to you. You want someone to make you laugh, which is what we try to do every single day. That’s what we’re going to do."
The sports media hall monitors often criticize Greenberg because he doesn't go viral or use his platform to push issues bigger than sports. They are clueless. A host who does not cave to political pressure is one of the most underrated skills in the industry.
The same can be said about Scott Van Pelt. Greenberg and Scott Van Pelt, respectively, host "Sunday NFL Countdown" and "Monday Night Countdown," both of which recorded their most watched episodes of the 2024 NFL season on Sunday – the Sunday before the election.
Viewers wanted an escape this past weekend. Greenberg and Van Pelt gave them one.
Does that mean ESPN is not long "woke? We wouldn't go that far.
Over the weekend, Washington Post reporter Ben Strauss told Puck that FS1 is more "woke" than ESPN. "The one true woke sports network in November of 2024 is not ESPN but it’s Fox Sports 1," Strauss said. "Who are the faces of Fox Sports 1? They are Colin Cowherd and Nick Wright, correct?"
He added that, in comparison, Pat McAfee and Stephen A. Smith and ESPN are the faces of ESPN.
The issue with Strauss' argument is that he's conflating "woke" with "politics." Yes, ESPN is doing a better job than Nick Wright at avoiding politics. But "woke" refers more to cultural and social trends than it does to Democrats vs. Republicans.
"Woke" is dismissing Caitlin Clark's popularity as "white privilege." "Woke" is defending the black women physically assaulting her on the court because it's popular on Black Twitter.
"Woke" is promoting and demoting talents based primarily on their skin color. "Woke" is racializing conversations that have nothing to do with race.
"Woke" is Elle Duncan talking about black women having C-sections to win an argument about NFL safety. Yes, that really happened. "Woke" is a willingness to pay Stephen A. Smith more money during his contract negotiations out of fear he would use the race card.
ESPN is still plenty "woke." It's just less political than before. It's a start. A positive start. We'll see if the trend continues.
Trump voters watch sports, too.