Monday was filled with drama surrounding Paul Finebaum and ESPN. But Tuesday everything appeared to be business as usual at the network.
It was reported by Clay Travis and Outkick that the colorful college football personality had been “banned” by ESPN following his revelation that he was considering a run for the US Senate from Alabama as a Republican. ESPN quickly moved to deny the report of a potential ban.
What followed amounted to a bit of a “he said, she said” situation with some reporters around the college football and sports media world echoing Travis while others suggested that Finebaum was merely not booked last week and that he would be back on ESPN airwaves soon. Adding to the uncertainty is the fact that Finebaum hung up on a caller that tried to broach the subject with him during Monday’s edition of The Paul Finebaum Show.
What we do know is that Finebaum did not appear in his usual slots on SportsCenter or First Take late last week, but continued his SEC Network duties including hosting his own show and appearing on Saturday pregame show SEC Nation. Was that because of a hard ban? Soft ban? No ban? Test ban? Was it because ESPN needs to break in other people in the event that he does launch a Senate campaign? It might depend on your interpretation or political persuasion.
We also know that whatever “ban” may or may not have been in place was over on Tuesday as Paul Finebaum was live and in living color on ESPN morning show Get Up as part of a college football panel with Heather Dinich and Jordan Rodgers. Naturally, no mention was made of the ongoing political drama surrounding Finebaum as they discussed the major college football stories of the week. He also then appeared on First Take later in the morning with Stephen A. Smith.
Given the contrasting narratives that have emerged, there are certainly plenty of layers to unpack as to what could really be going on behind the scenes between Paul Finebaum and ESPN. Things looked completely normal on Tuesday, but after Finebaum went to ESPN’s biggest critic to declare his interest in a US Senate campaign, and that same critic reported that he was “banned” from the network launching all sorts of drama… it’s hard to imagine that things will be normal for very much longer.
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