ESPN has been on the downhill skid for years now. In fact, you can point to just before the election of President Trump in 2016 when disgraced former quarterback Colin Kaepernick first kneeled during the National Anthem as a San Francisco 49er.
Every single liberal ESPN analyst supported Kaepernick’s divisive protest that was a slap in the face towards any veteran or law enforcement that puts their lives on the line for our freedoms every single day.
And ESPN just shockingly admitted how their sports analysts caused failed ratings.
But ESPN used to be exclusively focused on sports much like MTV used to focus on music. That’s why ESPN conservatives have known this and have constantly called out the blatant bias, but their calls have largely only been heard by fellow conservatives.
In 2016 and 2017, ESPN analysts took their political biases to a whole new level and it quickly turned into a plight of slanted news that permeated through the mainstream media.
Now, sports fans as a whole tend to lean at least slightly to the right because the core principles of sports are rooted in conservative values of hard work, personal responsibility, order, and delayed gratification.
But ESPN chose to ignore that fact. Conservatives awoke and refused to watch the escapism because it was always being watered down by these talking heads’ liberal political views.
ESPN even purged conservative voices including Curt Schilling, Mike Ditka, and Britt McHenry.
But, meanwhile, progressive voices like Jemele Hill were propped up and protected despite porous ratings and inane social media rants like when she called President Trump a “white supremacist,” which got her suspended.
The “Worldwide Leader in Sports” laid off over a hundred on-air personalities as a result of conservatives changing the channel.
And this week the new ESPN president, Jimmy Pitaro, admitted, “Without question our data tells us our fans do not want us to cover politics.”
Pitaro landed the top job at ESPN shortly after his predecessor, John Skipper, shocked the media industry by suddenly resigning in late 2017 when a drug dealer attempted to extort him by using his cocaine habit against him.
The Skipper era was responsible for ESPN taking a dramatic left turn, but when Pitaro took over, things started to change – even if it isn’t all the way back to down the middle of the aisle yet.
ESPN bought out Hill’s contract and she left to go work for The Atlantic, while Michelle Beadle was reassigned from “SportsNation,” to “Get Up” and now she only covers basketball on “NBA Countdown.”
But then you have liberals like Max Kellerman on “First Take” who will criticize President Trump any chance he can get but, to be fair, it’s been toned down over the last year or so.
Outside of Kellerman, you won’t find too many discussion infusing politics with sports and it’s due to Pitaro.
Reporter David Hookstead wrote, “Say whatever you want about ESPN, but Pitaro is clearly a smart dude. He’s also 100 percent correct. Your average sports fan doesn’t give a damn about the political opinions of ESPN hosts and pundits. They just don’t. Major shoutout to Pitaro for clearly having a good head on his shoulders. It’s a refreshing change of pace from the old regime.”
Unfortunately for Pitaro, it may be too little, too late for some conservative eyeballs to return.