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ESPN President Admits Political Commentary Killed Network With Viewers, Vows Change

News Commentary
By Rusty Weiss | Featured Contributor | May 21, 2019 12:31PM

ESPN President Jimmy Pitaro admitted in a Los Angeles Times profile this weekend that the social justice bent his network had taken in the era of President Trump hurt them with viewers.

“Without question our data tells us our fans do not want us to cover politics,” Pitaro confessed. “My job is to provide clarity. I really believe that some of our talent was confused on what was expected of them.”

In other words, shut up and analyze the dribbling.

The LA Times also notes that Pitaro has addressed traditional fans of the network by “steering commentators away from political discussions,” something that heightened during the battle between the President and NFL players protesting the national anthem.

Fans Don’t Want It

Prior to Pitaro taking over in March of 2018, ESPN was suffering horrible ratings on both television and radio programming and the network was shedding employees – some of them prominent names – by the hundreds.

It was almost assuredly because of the politics finding its way into the coverage.

You mean people tuning in to see sports highlights and analysis didn’t like being told that the President is a racist and they are too if they agree with him? That fans looking to escape the realities of the world for a brief period through sports didn’t appreciate anchors interjecting their personal politics? Who could have predicted such a thing?

Well, everyone really.

BS-PN

The average sports consumer used to go to ESPN to see highlights from their favorite teams. In the era of Trump, they got to see anchors refer to the President and his supporters as white supremacists.

They got to hear hosts blast the legendary Tiger Woods over his friendship with Trump, mocking him as stupid and claiming “he’s not black.”

Fans were even subjected to having a football announcer pulled from coverage of a University of Virginia game because of the crime of being named Robert Lee.

A top ESPN executive indicated in December of 2018 that the network’s pivot to political commentary was a “miscalculation,” something they had previously denied.

“I think we miscalculated a little bit,” the exec told the Washington Post. “The perception became that you could just roll a talent out there and it doesn’t matter what he or she is saying — that the content didn’t matter. I just never believed that.”

The network did believe it for a period of time, however. It’s good to see Pitaro steer them back to the core material that sports fans are seeking. Is it too little, too late?