Everyone’s story of working at ESPN differs, including why they eventually left the company. Jemele Hill and Kenny Mayne’s stories might seem different, but they shared many of the same sentiments about how things worked behind the scenes while they were there.
Mayne was a guest on Spolitics with Jemele Hill this week to discuss his career journey, why he left ESPN, and the organization he started to help veterans. They also discussed their shared time at ESPN.
While Mayne’s time at the Worldwide Leader ended over a disagreement over his worth, Hill was on the losing end of a culture war battle over comments she’d made about Donald Trump. Mayne remembered how fraught it felt even to discuss Colin Kaepernick’s national anthem protest for social justice, and the blowback that people like Hill received.
“I remember the time I came on talking about [Colin] Kaepernick, which was even before, and I remember how… ‘nervous’ wasn’t the right word. It wasn’t like we’re talking now. You know what I mean? That’s the best way to put it,” said Mayne. “Every sentence I said, like, ‘Is it okay that I say it’s okay that Kaepernick took a knee?’ It was a weird thing.
“Your show, it got so mischaracterized. Everybody talked like you’re out there reading the Communist Manifesto every show. Once in a while, you guys did a thing if sports and politics got together. But again, I remember staying, and some people thought it was controversial, which I think is crazy.
“… There were things happening that were worthy of protesting, and that was his best vehicle. He didn’t interrupt the anthem. There’s other people in the stands, the same people mad at him. They’re drinking beer, they got their hat on. You know what I mean? There was so much hypocrisy about that whole thing. And he was right in what he did. So it’s almost like, always the protesters are the ones, ‘those crazy radicals.’ And then some years later, it’s like, ‘they kinda had a point.’ The Vietnam War protester kinda had a point.”
Hill then asked Mayne if he’s thought about what it would be like to work at ESPN now during the second Trump presidency.
“Well, it seems the political rules have vanished,” he said. “Although I would say, honestly, and again, I’m not slamming, you’re asking a legitimate question analyzing a place that’s in the culture. If you have a certain power there, then you get to do what you want to do. If you don’t have as much power, then you don’t get to do what you.
“I was probably in the mid-power range… right? I could get away with not doing my compliance training or letting it stack up. F*ck your compliance training. You’re only doing that to protect you guys. You don’t care that I know to treat women well. I already do treat women well. I’ve done it for 20-odd years. I’m not filling out your stupid form. In fact, one time they sent a HR guy to help me do it. ‘You got to get it done.’ I was at my desk gambling on Saratoga, the horses, and the guy sat with me. We did the compliance on one computer while we were cheering on horses on the other.
“The rules were such in our time. They were very strict. It’s so funny because everybody paints ESPN as ‘such a liberal place and all of you are woke’ and all that stupid sh*t. The truth is, it’s kinda a conservative place, and those who had left-wing, if you want to call it that, opinions, we were the ones who were under watch. Not that the other people said so much, but they said nothing, which was like saying something.”
Mayne added that he got reprimanded for making a joke after Trump’s physician said he was the healthiest president ever elected. He said that people at ESPN would monitor his and other hosts’ Twitterfeeds for what they said.
“They were strange times,” he said. “They had a committee to watch our Twitter, basically. They had four or five people that would alert, ‘Hey, is this too far? I don’t know.’ They’d decide whether it was worthy of some type of reprimand.”
“Yeah, ESPN had its own version of Doge,” replied Hill. “But related to social media.”
Mayne then brought up two people who benefit from the more carefree version of ESPN today, at least for talent at a particular pay grade.
“But now you got [Pat] McAfee does what he wants politically,” said Mayne. “Now, that’s different. God bless him. He made a great deal. He really made a deal where we do whatever we want, and you’ve decided to air it. He doesn’t have people telling him, say this or say that.
“Steven A. is on Hannity’s show every other day. Those are quite political statements. I don’t even know what all he believes, but it seems like there’s a great freedom if you’re in such a position where you now hold the leverage.”
“I’m going to add to that and say there’s freedom when you have leverage,” said Hill. “And certainly two of the biggest contracts, and maybe already, Steven A. probably has the biggest contract now at ESPN, and there’s a lot of weight and money that comes with that, and leverage and power.
“But the other part of it, too, is the type of politics that they’re expressing, because I do wonder, like if it wasn’t Hannity… If he were going on Rachel Maddow every night or every other night, would this still be as embraced? Because Stephen A. ‘s politics, even though clearly at times he says things that rile people up, and he’s riled up both sides of the aisle before. But I do think that it’s probably an easier sell to get away with more right-leaning politics, because when you think about the powers that be, both at ESPN and at Disney, they probably skew, as we just discussed, a little bit more conservative. I think it’s the combo of power and the type of politics that you’re expressing.”