ESPN's Dan Le Batard used his two shows on the net yesterday to attack the company's policy on talking politics, saying ESPN seeks to have on-air personalities discuss such issues "only through the prism of sports, because we can't talk about it in a way that makes sense otherwise on this network." Le Batard raised the issue in the wake of President Trump's executive order on immigration. Le Batard said it is "kind of weak of ESPN, and us, to attack this question" using comments made by Warriors coach Steve Kerr "as a shield." Kerr following his game Sunday called Trump's order "shocking and a horrible idea" ("Highly Questionable," ESPN, 1/30). Le Batard earlier in the day on his radio show noted company employees received a memo about how to address Trump’s actions. He said, “I understand that they want people to be very careful about politics. But this is a problem that ESPN has, that all of sports has. The genie’s out of the bottle on Twitter and social media. ... You can’t tell these guys, you can’t limit their freedom, and ESPN is trying to keep this genie in the bottle by sending out a memo that doesn’t allow us to talk politics.” He added, “Part of the thing that we negotiated when we started on this show -- more than money, more than anything -- was freedom of content. And I get what ESPN is afraid of here. ... I understand what ESPN is doing with these memos. They don’t want to open the door so that everyone at ESPN is talking politics instead of sports in a way that alienates. But I think that the way we are doing it is weak.” Le Batard: “It just feels unbelievably weak to me to only talk about this through the prism (of sports). ... What it feels like to me is a lack of trust in your employees, that you don’t trust someone to cross the line” (“The Dan Le Batard Show,” ESPN Radio, 1/30).
TAKING INTERNAL SHOTS: Le Batard also took ESPN's Sage Steele to task for an Instagram post in which she lamented missing a flight out of LAX on Sunday due to the protests against Trump's order. He said, "This is what ESPN is trying to prevent, because once one person does it, it opens the floodgates for the rest of us. Of course, I, as the son of exiles, look at this and I’m like, ‘What the hell are you talking about? Your travel plans were affected? What are you talking about?’ It’s the height of privilege. And so once you start opening that portal, then you get ESPN on ESPN crime. You get all of this stuff that ESPN doesn’t want to have, as people think of ESPN as liberal leaning. But you can’t give this a voice and then muzzle the rest of us” (ESPN Radio, 1/30).
