ESPN likes opinionated personalities ... until it doesn’t.
It’s almost axiomatic at ESPN: You’re nobody unless you’ve been suspended for saying something you — or perhaps mostly your bosses — regret.
Over the years the dishonor roll at the self-styled Worldwide Leader in Sports has been studded with many all-star names. In an era in which media discourse has gotten increasingly coarse, ESPN — of all things, a sports network — stands out for the number of times its leading lights have said or done things that invited disciplinary action.
First on the suspension list was Mike Tirico, in the 1990s. More recently, there was Keith Olbermann (twice), Tony Kornheiser (twice), Bill Simmons, Stephen A. Smith and Dan LeBatard. Harold Reynolds, Curt Schilling and Ron Franklin were fired for saying or doing something that violated company policy.
Now comes Jemele Hill, the “SportsCenter” host who has been on the hot seat for the past week for some controversial tweets. To the consternation of some, Hill hasn’t been disciplined for her statements, though like a number of ESPN stars, she once was.
Hill touched a national nerveending last week with a couple of tweets: “Donald Trump is a white supremacist who has largely surrounded himself w/ other white supremacists,” she wrote, adding a few minutes later, ” Trump is the most ignorant, offensive president of my lifetime. His rise is a direct result of white supremacy. Period.”
Outrage, predictably, ensued. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders repeatedly called for Hill’s firing, seconded by many of President Donald Trump’s supporters. Trump added some lighter fluid to the brushfire via a tweet on Friday reading, “ESPN is paying a really big price for its politics (and bad programming). People are dumping it in RECORD numbers. Apologize for untruth!”
Bottom line: ESPN once again found itself dealing with an employee whose free speech might have been a little too free.
Over the years, ESPN has encouraged its star personalities to express their opinions — within bounds, whatever those might be. That may have made the Hill incident inevitable.
Ever since Olbermann and Dan Patrick turned ESPN’s signature program, “SportsCenter,” into a popular and freewheeling shtickfest in the mid-1990s, ESPN’s hosts, analysts and commentators have been dispensing opinions by the semitrailer. When the Disney-owned network and its related media properties aren’t covering thousands of hours of games, its people are trafficking opinions about those games, the more bombastic the better. It is, increasingly, what ESPN is.
Yes, the opinions usually involve stuff about relief pitchers and defensive tackles, not politics. But the network has increasingly pushed the subjective over mere highlights and just-thefacts reporting, both of which are now in abundance on the internet. ESPN’s most successful and enduring shows — “Pardon the Interruption,” “ESPN First Take,” “Around the Horn” (which features former Denver Post sportswriter Woody Paige), “SportsNation,” “The Sports Reporters,” all the pre- and postgame shows — are designed to be the sports equivalent of “The McLaughlin Group.”
The company signaled its direction, or at least its priorities, in May when it laid off about 100 people in a bid to shore up its sagging profitability. The ax fell most heavily on the straight-news journalists, both on air and online. It largely passed over its commentarial ranks, clearing the airwaves for more from the likes of professional provocateurs such as Smith, LeBatard and Kornheiser.
Sports fans (like political junkies) love strong opinions, of course. But the network’s endless commentary culture has caused some of its employees to push the envelope well past the breaking point.
Olbermann, the much traveled sports and news commentator, was put on ice by ESPN in 2015 for hostile tweets aimed at Penn State students and alumni; he was first suspended in 1997 for calling ESPN’s headquarters in Bristol, Conn., “a godforsaken place” on a rival network. Kornheiser’s two strikes involved his comments about colleague Hannah Storm’s wardrobe in 2010 and for disparaging his bosses on his ESPN radio show in 2002.
Hill herself first stepped into this breach in 2008 when she wrote on ESPN.com that “rooting for the Celtics is like saying Hitler was a victim. It’s like hoping Gorbachev would get to the blinking red button before Reagan.”
She apologized for that column, and earned a one-week suspension. The company dropped the hammer even harder in 2014 when Bill Simmons called NFL president Roger Goodell “a liar” for Goodell’s handling of the Ray Rice affair. Simmons, who had a long history of nettling his bosses, was suspended for three weeks without pay.
The suspensions demonstrate “the sometimes tortured relationship” ESPN has had with its biggest and loudest personalities, says James Andrew Miller, the co-author of an oral history of ESPN, “Those Guys Have All the Fun.”
“It’s still in some corners a very traditional place,” Miller said. When departed commentator Skip Bayless and Smith “started throwing out their controversial and often wild pronouncements, there was discomfort.” That was about sports, not politics, he added. “I believe it’s fair to say a good chunk of the company wants the focus to be on its journalism … They don’t want politics to enter into the equation at all and worry ESPN is losing its pedigree.”
There’s also the matter of punishment, or rather the lack of it. Hill, once again, has apologized, but this time the company has taken no action against her, raising cries of double standards. Former ESPN baseball commentator Schilling, who was fired last year for making inflammatory statements about Muslims, transgender people and Hillary Clinton, said last week he was taken off the air “for being a conservative” while Hill has gotten a pass.
People at ESPN counter that any attempt to conflate Hill and Schilling or Simmons grossly oversimplifies matters. Unlike Hill, they say, Schilling and Simmons were openly defiant; they had been repeatedly told by managers to pipe down yet continued to make polarizing statements. Other suspensions or firings at ESPN involved workplace issues, such as sexual harassment.
Still, the sheer number of highprofile disciplinary actions is unusual for a media organization.