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By Matt Yoder on

The Lane Kiffin saga has been one of the wildest stories in recent memory in the sports world. But it’s not just the new LSU coach in the spotlight for burning bridges once again and leaving Ole Miss on the eve of the College Football Playoff. It’s his agent too, Jimmy Sexton.

And a question that has popped up, especially in the sports media world, is just how much influence Sexton has and is it having an effect on the coverage of Kiffin, specifically when it comes to ESPN and their college football analysts?

The way this story has been consumed by fans, and even those within the industry itself, feels like new territory and a watershed moment. It’s a pulling back of the curtain. It’s not necessarily “Breaking the Magician’s Code” or anything, but the way Sexton’s name has become part of the conversation has felt like something that you may see in the political world with the unseen kingmakers being recognized for the powerful strings they pull behind the scenes.

And in the sports world, few are as powerful as Jimmy Sexton, superagent to the masses. A 2015 ESPN article called him “College football’s ultimate power broker.” Sexton is the head of football at CAA, the massively powerful and influential Creative Artists Agency that represents a significant portion of athletes, coaches, and sports media personalties. The irony is that Sexton is far from a public-facing figure. Good luck finding any photos or interview footage of him online touting his personal success or those of his clients.

That’s why it was stunning when Paul Finebaum invoked Sexton’s name on Get Up on Monday morning, calling him the “puppet master” who “controls most of the shots in college football.” Sexton represents not just Lane Kiffin, but Nick Saban, Kalen DeBoer, Kirby Smart, and Steve Sarkisian to name a few.

And that’s when host Mike Greenberg joked that he was also the agent of ESPN analyst Rex Ryan.

While a comment in passing like that could have easily been forgotten about in the discussion, it comes with an extra bit of scrutiny in this news cycle because of the influence of Sexton and CAA. Rex Ryan had offered up an impassioned defense of Lane Kiffin, even calling out players for their movement in the transfer portal and refusing to criticize the Ole Miss coach for the way that he’s handled his departure. This seemingly obvious double standard was called out by Jemele Hill.

But was Rex Ryan just speaking his mind? Was he defending the coaching fraternity? Or was he sticking up for his agent and a fellow client because he’s desperately trying to get back in the coaching world himself?

That potential conflict of interest isn’t limited to Rex Ryan, it also extends to Nick Saban, who has also been under fire from comments on College GameDay.

After his hiring at LSU, Lane Kiffin admitted that he took the advice from his former mentor at Alabama to not look back and take the job with the Tigers. Over the weekend, Saban had been supportive of Kiffin in talking about his situation at Ole Miss. However, he did not disclose to viewers that he was counseling Kiffin and telling him to leave.

This is when the optics of the situation became a problem for ESPN. Coziness between ESPN talent and CAA potentially potentially influencing coverage is not a new thing and it’s something that has long been mostly whispered about as agencies not only represent coaches and players, but also media talent. When media personalities comment on a player or coach who share the same agent, is that something they can be objective about or something that should be disclosed?

Steven Godfrey has been a consistent critic of ESPN and the Jimmy Sexton factor since Kiffin’s potential move to LSU became a possibility. And it hasn’t helped that both Nick Saban and Kirk Herbstreit have been ultra-deferential to Kiffin, even saying that he should have been allowed to coach Ole Miss in the College Football Playoff while leaving for LSU. That’s an idea that has been soundly rejected by almost everybody else in the college football universe outside of Kiffin, Herbstreit, and Saban.

But he hasn’t been alone. Others have noted the connection between Kiffin, Sexton, CAA, and much of ESPN’s college football coverage. It should be noted that almost the entire College GameDay set is represented by CAA including Rece Davis, Kirk Herbstreit, Nick Saban, and Desmond Howard. So is Mike Greenberg, Joe Buck, and Troy Aikman. So is Erin Andrews and Drew Brees and Tony Romo. So are a whole bunch of other people throughout the athlete, coaching, and media world. It’s the reality of CAA being one of the world’s most powerful agencies in the world, especially in sports.

So is there some kind of grand Jimmy Sexton led conspiracy to influence and shape ESPN coverage to his liking for the benefit of his clients, including Lane Kiffin?

That one is a stretch.

Former ESPNer Gene Wojciechowski, who spent over two decades at the network covering college football, flatly denied that coverage is dictated by Jimmy Sexton in any way, shape, or form. “Not once did ESPN try to influence my opinions or mention agency client lists. If you want to disagree with Kirk Herbstreit, fine. But do so on the merits of the argument,” Wojciechowski said in a social media post.

Furthermore, Paul Finebaum himself is a CAA client. What would he have to gain by exposing own agency, especially as he explores a potential United States Senate run?

But this is the “perception is reality” universe that ESPN has to realize they are now living in. ESPN is facing an unprecedented era of skepticism and criticism. There are scores of fans that assume things are not on the up and up whether it’s coverage of SEC football, carriage disputes, their deal with the NFL, or now this coverage of Lane Kiffin.

Never before has ESPN in their 40+ year history faced accusations that a superagent is pulling the strings on their coverage. But that’s a real thing in 2025 where distrust of any institution is at an all-time high. And it’s something that the network has to wrap their heads around because inevitably there will be another story just like this that’s right around the corner.

It’s much more likely that what is really at hand here is the relationships that run throughout the football world influencing individuals versus some kind of company-wide edict that is coming from Bob Iger and Jimmy Sexton having a secret meeting in the Maldives.

Kirk Herbstreit has been around the sport for decades. We know how friendly Lane Kiffin is with the College GameDay crew thanks to his multiple appearances on the show. Nick Saban hired Kiffin and helped to restore his career as an assistant at Alabama. Of course he’s going to advise him on the biggest decision of his life.

But where ESPN runs into problems is that Nick Saban can’t then be expected to also give impartial analysis on the situation at Ole Miss without disclosing that conflict of interest to viewers. It leaves fans feeling like the rug has been pulled at from under them. If Nick Saban is telling Lane Kiffin to leave Ole Miss for LSU in the most controversial of circumstances, he also owes that same explanation to College GameDay viewers after spending the last month stumping for him on television. You can only imagine the reception that Saban will get if GameDay somehow decides to go to Oxford next season.

ESPN does not have a Jimmy Sexton problem. And we’re pretty safe in assuring sports fans that the chances of a grand CAA conspiracy with the Rand Corporation are between slim and none. But ESPN does have to figure out how to better navigate a world where their analysts have to deal with their own conflicts of interest.

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