Nothing like a good dose of hypocrisy to accompany your national title game.
ESPN’s determination to “stick to sports” took an embarrassing blow Monday night when it allowed its broadcast to become a tool of state propaganda. President Donald Trump received free airtime to wish Ohio State and Notre Dame well and instead gave a stump speech, spewing lies and painting a vision of this country that can only be described as an illusion.
“In recent years, our people have suffered a lot. But from now on, we are going to take America back and make it safer, richer and prouder than ever,” said the man who had just pardoned 1,500 defendants on January 6including those who violently attacked police officers. Trump also commuted the sentences of some convicted of seditious conspiracy, a crime only slightly less worse than treason.
“We will be respected again and we will be admired again. Admired in a way we haven’t been in many, many years,” Trump said. “…Less than three months after the election, you’ve already seen this happen. You can feel the enthusiasm and see the confidence and spirit returning to our nation.
One thing you can’t see is the price of these eggs to come down. But I digress…
Trump is going to do what Trump is going to do. What is this old saying? How can you say he’s lying? Because his lips are moving. His second term is already on the way to becoming a big scama way to enrich yourself, your family and your oligarch cronies while making life harder for ordinary Americans, and many of us tried to warn you.
But this is not about Trump. It’s about ESPN and its parent company Disney licking the boots of an aspiring autocrat, and people screaming that athletes should “stick to sports” and encouraging them to do so.
It has always been impossible to separate sport from politics. Whether it was Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier, Billie Jean King fighting for equal rights, or Colin Kaepernick protesting police bias against black and brown people years before the murder of George Floyd , sport is the prism through which we see our society. They give us a way to make sense of some of our most controversial issues and provide us with common ground to resolve them.
However, there is a part of our society that claims not to like seeing politics in sport. What they really mean, though, is that they don’t like to see politics they don’t like in sports. And they especially don’t like seeing politics they don’t like in sports from black and brown or LGBTQ people.
This is good when it comes to issues or politicians they support. Or from people who share their point of view. This is why Kaepernick was excluded and Nick Bosa gets a shout out from Trump. When is this not the case? This is when people get upset because LeBron James is addressing systemic racism or Megan Rapinoe is speaking out against sexism and homophobia.
ESPN supposedly didn’t want to get caught in the middle of all this. It was supposed to just show games and get people talking about sports while avoiding the real issues that affect it all.
But his actions show that it’s a prank.
Remember when SportsCenter anchor Jemele Hill drew Trump’s ire in 2017 after calling him a “white supremacist”?
“Next thing you know, they didn’t want Mike and I on camera as much,” Hill, referring to his SportsCenter co-host Michael Smith, recalled during a 2022 appearance on Kenny Mayne’s podcast. She left the network in January 2018.
On Monday, ESPN gave up lucrative airtime — 30-second commercials typically cost more than $1 million — so it could give Trump a platform.
“With Donald Trump’s inauguration taking place on the day of the CFP National Championship, it makes sense to include a message from the president,” ESPN said in a statement to USA TODAY Sports, “a practice that occurs regularly at events major athletes – including earlier”. this month from President Biden before the Sugar Bowl.
Biden’s remarks followed terrorist attack in New Orleans this delayed the Sugar Bowl by a day, and they were both brief and apolitical. This is not at all the same as Trump’s self-serving spiel and everyone, including ESPN, knows it.
One of the most disappointing things to happen since Trump’s re-election is the submissiveness shown by people who should know better. Disney, the parent company of ESPN, led the way, agree to pay Trump $16 million to settle defamation lawsuit there was a good chance of winning. Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos and Tim Cook were also eager to get down on one knee.
What they don’t seem to realize is that Trump is not the almighty Oz. Her The 1.5 point victory margin was one of the narrowest on record, and more people voted for one of his opponents or didn’t vote at all than voted for him. About half the country says they disapprove of it. His term is also limited, meaning his hold on American politics is on (relatively) borrowed time.
Yet ESPN surrendered its airwaves and credibility at the first opportunity. Stick to sports? You first.
Follow USA TODAY sports columnist Nancy Armor on social media @nrarmour.