ESPN spent Friday telling employees that its no-politics policy is still in place even after Dan Le Batard violated it and remained on the air without any known discipline.
ESPN officials were spreading the word through the media Friday that nothing has changed in terms of the policy under which it only wants its commentators to delve into politics when it intersects with sports.
On Thursday, during his national morning radio show, Le Batard spoke about President Trump’s supporters chanting, “Send her back” about Somalian refugee-turned-American citizen Rep. Ilhan Omar.
Le Batard, the son of Cuban immigrants, went directly after the sports network that pays him millions and pointed a finger — without naming names — at ESPN’s president, Jimmy Pitaro.
While sources say Pitaro and Le Batard have had several conversations, Le Batard remained on the air, and ESPN’s main goal seems to be to try to keep any media storm to a minimum. ESPN declined to say if there was any financial punishment.
Former president John Skipper’s failure to enforce the network’s policy after Jemele Hill called Trump a “white supremacist” nearly two years ago led to a media swarm.
Late last summer, Hill and ESPN parted ways, though she still received payment on the final two years of her four-year, $10 million deal. Pitaro was the one who approved the Hill payout. Skipper had awarded Hill the contract.
It is unclear if the current management is as high on Le Batard as Skipper was during his time in charge.
Le Batard’s weekday TV show, “Highly Questionable,” was recently demoted from ESPN to ESPN2 on Mondays during the football season. This is not the direction programs want to go on the network and it is often a worry that the move could become permanent.
While Le Batard’s radio show has been critically well-received, it has not found a hold in all markets. It was in New York for awhile, but, like most national shows, did not cut through here.
Skipper is now at DAZN and has been spending a lot of money. Le Batard, who recently signed a new multi-year, seven-figures-per deal, has often talked about the power of the ESPN platform and how it is a mistake to ever leave it.
On Thursday, Le Batard challenged Pitaro and ESPN executives, going against policy, while using his own power of a big contract and stage to express his feelings about Trump.
He used a tweet from Fox Sports and SiriusXM’s Nick Wright as a launching point. Wright described Trump and the crowd’s language as “abhorrent, obviously racist, dangerous rhetoric and not calling it out makes you complicit. The ‘send her back’ chant + the ‘go back to where you came from’ are so antithetical to what we should be.”
“It is so right, what he is saying there,” Le Batard added. “It is so wrong, what the president of our country is doing, trying to get re-elected by dividing the masses, at a time when the old white man, the old rich white man, feels oppressed, being attacked, by minorities. This isn’t about politics; it’s about race.”
Le Batard went after his own network as well.
“We here at ESPN haven’t had the stomach for that fight, because Jemele [Hill] did some things on Twitter and you saw what happened after that, and then here all of a sudden nobody talks politics on anything unless we can use one of these sports figures as a meat-shield in the most cowardly possible way to discuss these subjects,” Le Batard said.
During the first hour of Friday’s show, Le Batard was not on the air. His sidekick, Jon (Stugotz) Weiner, said Le Batard was eating “breakfast.” Le Batard returned, but never addressed his comments during the final two hours of the program.
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