Most ESPN viewers are likely either outraged or confused why Paul Finebaum was removed from the network’s airwaves after expressing an interest in running for U.S. Senate, but former ESPNer Bomani Jones is neither.
In fact, Jones believes the decision tracks almost perfectly with ESPN’s recent history and how it handles overt political chatter on-air. The network and its Disney overlords do not distinguish between left and right-leaning commentary, but they do draw a hard line when it comes to sensitive topics related to the current presidential administration.
While Finebaum returned to air Tuesday morning after contradicting reports about his status at ESPN, Jones believes ESPN made a business decision rather than an “editorial” one.
“I feel very confident saying this about the current world order at ESPN,” Jones said Tuesday on his podcast The Right Time. “There ain’t no rules. Not in terms of your ideology. Not in terms of what your politics are.”
Jones suggested ESPN and Disney could be worried about the FCC’s s0-called equal time rule, which came up when NBC aired a segment from the Donald Trump campaign last fall during a NASCAR broadcast after Kamala Harris was on Saturday Night Live. However, the equal time rule only applies to broadcast networks and radio stations, not cable networks like ESPN.
Either way, ESPN already saw the potential blow back from Finebaum’s presence on the network when a caller to his SEC Network show mentioned his supposed suspension while on-air and had to be cut off by a producer. Jones believes the situation came down to a very similar dynamic that ESPN and Disney faced when they received pressure from local affiliate stations and the FCC after Kimmel’s comments on the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
“I don’t think for a moment that it is an editorial decision,” Jones explained. “That, ‘You said you’re down with Donald Trump, we can’t have that.’ Did you just see what Iger did for Trump? Did you just see it? It just happened over there with the Kimmel thing. Did you see what happened? No, I don’t believe for a moment that, for reasons of politics, that they would tell Finebaum to get off the air.”
Jones notoriously clashed with Finebaum on ESPN’s Outside the Lines more than a decade ago after the network removed Hank Williams Jr.’s intro song from Monday Night Football. The move came after Williams appeared on Fox News, where he compared Barack Obama to Adolf Hitler and called the president and vice president “the enemy.”
To close his segment, Jones referenced that clash over Williams and southern culture while arguing how absurd it is that Finebaum could be a candidate for office.
“We didn’t always do this, is all I’m saying. The fact that we have reached a point where it is a conceivable idea that Paul Finebaum could be your Senator and it is entirely on the basis of the fact that people know who he is,” Jones said. “I don’t know anything that Paul thinks about anything in this world other than Hank Williams Jr. … and somebody really signed up and said, ‘Hey man, what do you think about that being the Senator?'”
Finebaum’s candidacy in Alabama is already gaining steam, and Jones can’t believe the country is at a point where that could be possible, regardless of how ESPN and Disney are currently approaching his status at the network.
“What Paul Finebaum has that not many people in the state of Alabama have is fame and preexisting name recognition,” Jones said. “But this is crazy talk, hard stop.”
About Brendon Kleen
Brendon is a Media Commentary staff writer at Awful Announcing. He has also covered basketball and sports business at Front Office Sports, SB Nation, Uproxx and more.