ESPN's Mina Kimes' Weak Response To Clay Travis Shows She Cannot Handle Criticism | Bobby Burack

ESPN analyst Mina Kimes cannot handle criticism. She believes she's off-limits. 

Kimes made that clear over the weekend when she accused OutKick of spreading "horrible lies" about her and inciting "racist harassment" against her and her family.

For a recap, Kimes appeared on one of Dan Le Batard's podcasts last week during which she praised the "masculinity" of Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz. Kimes credited Walz for coaching high school football (he lied; he was just an assistant) while also helping create his school's first "Gay-Straight Alliance."

Walz also put tampons in boys' bathrooms, deserted his soldiers, and let cities in Minnesota burn in the name of George Floyd.

Still, Kimes likes him. And that's okay. 

In fact, we defended Kimes' right to express her political opinions. We only covered her comments to question ESPN for allowing her (and many other liberal pundits) to break its "ban on politics" policy but punished Sage Steele, who is conservative, for doing the same in 2021. ESPN did not respond to several requests for comment.

Later in the week, former NBC Sports reporter Michelle Tafoya tagged Kimes on X, calling her comments about Walz "embarrassing." 

"I am sincerely embarrassed for @minakimes," Tafoya wrote. "And how pathetic that her kind of ‘masculinity’ means more than the candidate’s record, which is abysmal. Sincerely, A Minnesotan." 

Kimes responded with a two-second video of LeBron James pretending to be afraid during a Lakers game.

OutKick writer John Simmons, like several other writers online, aggregated the Kimes and Tafoya argument. He reached out to Kimes for additional comment. 

Kimes responded with the following text message:

"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."

What "horrible lies" has OutKick spread about her? Who exactly is harassing her and her family with racism on our behalf? OutKick founder Clay Travis asked Kimes those very questions in a lengthy column on Saturday. Clay reviewed every story the site has written about Kimes, drawing the following conclusion:

"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. Given that OutKick has published thousands of articles this year, that doesn't seem like a ton of coverage."

You can read Clay's full response to Kimes here. In short, none of the articles on our site spread any "horrible lies" about Kimes. Or even "lies." 

The articles about her consisted of either opinions about her viral opinions (her criticism of Aaron Rodgers for not receiving the Covid vaccine), the hypocrisy of ESPN (the Sage Steele example), or straight news (a Boston radio station suspending a guy for his comments about Kimes).

Kimes finally addressed some of her accusations Sunday night. She uploaded four random screenshots of trolls on the internet saying mean things about her, blaming the nasty comments on OutKick.

Here's a look (note: she deleted a previous version of her tweet hours prior):

Kimes has still not pointed out what "horrible lies" we've spread about her. Both Clay and I have offered to correct them immediately, if provided. Until then, let's focus on what Kimes did provide: mean comments from faceless accounts on X.

Mean comments, unfortunately, come with the territory of a big platform. Kimes has a big platform.

ESPN pays Mina Kimes around $2 million a year. The network bills her as an "NFL analyst," a title previously reserved only for former NFL players. Kimes did not play in the NFL. Still, she appears on ESPN's most viewed shows during the football season, like "First Take," "NFL Live," and "PTI."

There is not a single person in media who is paid to give strong opinions and doesn't receive some vitriol online. Type in any notable name from ESPN, Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, OutKick, etc. – they are all hated by some keyboard warriors.

Kimes is no different. She just chose to cherry-pick a few examples and post them online. As Clay pointed out, that's easy to do. 

I try to avoid writing in the first person. But I think this occasion warrants an exception to explain what's going on here. One of the very first observations I made when covering sports media (mind you, I started as a 19-year-old in college writing for a site called The Big Lead) was how much a Cool Kids Club the industry is. 

There are people you don't dare question: Bomani Jones, Katie Nolan, Maria Taylor, and Mina Kimes. Then there is the group you are supposed to criticize: Clay Travis, Will Cain, Jason Whitlock, and Dave Portnoy.

Nearly everyone who writes about sports media abides by those rules – such as Awful Announcing, Sports Illustrated, the New York Times, Washington Post, and formerly Deadspin. Agents at CAA and WME have come to accept they have certain clients who are subject to scrutiny and others who are not.

I say all this to show that, other than OutKick and Jason Whitlock, the sacred cows of sports media have hardly ever had a negative word published about them.

The media has cherished Kimes throughout her entire rise. She checks off all the requisite boxes: openly progressive, staunch critic of conservatives, woman of color, Ivy League-educated, and talented.

The likes of Dan Le Batard have perpetually praised her for proving the "sexist knuckle draggers at the executive level and on social media wrong" about women in sports.

The Big Lead named her the Best NFL Studio Analyst of 2023, ahead of Michael Strahan, Terry Bradshaw, Randy Moss, Rob Gronkowski, and Jimmy Johnson. (The list is not a parody.)

For nearly a decade, Kimes has heard she is the It Girl who rose above the ills of the racist, male-dominated industry and paved the way for other little girls of color to talk football on TV.

Her bosses have contributed.

Previously, pundits on ESPN had to put in years of reporting or playing sports to have a voice on television. Kimes didn't. 

ESPN placed her on television in her early 30s. She made over $1 million a year before she turned 37. Her mostly white bosses are afraid to tell her to "stick to sports" at the risk of her accusing them of racism and sexism, like she did us.

Meteoric rises create entitlement.

Names like Stephen A. Smith, Rachel Nichols, and Michael Wilbon matured through the scrutiny, challenges, and financial insecurity they faced before finally making it on-air.

They earned their positions. Kimes thinks she earned hers.

Kimes lives in a fantasy land of constant praise, no accountability, an army of white knights by her side. She is led to believe that anyone who questions her opinions is "inciting harassment."  

By her logic, she is inciting harassment by criticizing Aaron Rodgers, the unvaccinated, Michelle Tafoya, and OutKick. Apparently, Kimes is responsible for any hate mail we receive.

In the end, Kimes can't stand that OutKick covers her how normal public figures are covered. She is rattled that her use of the race card proved ineffective against us.

So instead of naming the "horrible lies" of which she falsely accused us, she blamed OutKick for @TimmyGTA2345's saying something mean about her online.