Sage Steele Sues Her Former Agency Over How It Handled Her Standoff With ESPN

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Broadcaster Sage Steele settled with ESPN in 2023 after being removed from the network for her comments on political issues.

Now, Steele has filed a new lawsuit, and this time it's against Creative Artists Agency and her former agents over how they handled the situation when Steele was pulled off the air.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Steele's suit was filed in court Tuesday and it accuses the agency "of breach of fiduciary duty for failing to properly advocate for her."

…That's kind of the whole point of having an agency behind you; so that it advocates on your behalf.

Of course, the lawsuit includes some alleged examples of this.

Broadcaster Sage Steele has filed a lawsuit against her former agency. (Photo by Araya Doheny/Getty Images for DailyWire+)

The lawsuit references statements made by Steele's agent Matthew Kramer, who is the co-head of sports media for the agency, in which he allegedly did not demand that Steele not be required to apologize for her comments that criticized the network's COVID vaccination policy.

Furthermore, she alleges that Kramer lied to her by saying that the head of the agency's legal department would review her contract, but claims instead that a junior attorney was given that task.

Steele also claims that the agency never advised her that the comments she had made were "well within her rights." Instead, the lawsuit claims that she was advised to simply comply with whatever ESPN wanted.

Things get interesting when the suit alleges that CAA had a conflict of interest when it came to handling Steele's situation. That's because the agency also counts Adam Schefter and Adrian Wojnarowski as clients. Obviously, those are big names at ESPN, and in 2022 — between Steele getting pulled off the air in 2021 and settling her lawsuit with the network in 2023 — both Schefter and Wojnarowski inked new deals, which CAA got a taste of.

We'll have to see how this one ultimately plays out, but it's interesting for sure.

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Matt is a University of Central Florida graduate and a long-suffering Philadelphia Flyers fan living in Orlando, Florida. He can usually be heard playing guitar, shoe-horning obscure quotes from The Simpsons into conversations, or giving dissertations to captive audiences on why Iron Maiden is the greatest band of all time.