The cruelty that exists in our world stuns me. Last week, many wonderful, gifted people at ESPN lost their dream jobs. So many handled it with tremendous grace captured in 140 character tweets.
And yet, if you read Twitter, many felt these individuals deserved it because Caitlyn Jenner won the Arthur Ashe Award or of opposition to the bathroom issue in North Carolina (note: NBA and NCAA also opposed it). As many articles pointed, the perceived leftward drift of ESPN was a symptom not a cause of its problems. And none of the individuals let go had any say or visibility into the big bets made at the C-Suite Level at Disney and ESPN years ago that caused the company’s problems: overpaying for rights, overpaying for individuals when underpaying led to their initial success, over hiring in certain areas when under hiring had been a key success factor, not seeing the massive cord cutting coming (the type of disruption the great former CEO Steve Bornstein might have spotted early), the aging of the SportsCenter brand.
These are people who are facing a downsizing market with diminished career opportunities. Some are young with small children. Others are at an age when it is hard to find a position in any industry never mind a shrinking one. And after a glance at the list, I’m pretty sure that some of the individuals quietly voted for the same candidate as their critics.
I’ve actually been working on a podcast with an ESPN friend, the legendary Howie Schwab, as a way for both of us to escape the political landscape. So I understand the political fatigue. But please. To my knowledge, no anchor wore a pussy hat, sported an “I’m with her” button, or debated the underside of NAFTA after a Cavs highlight. (And if they did, they should have been fired.) Now that’s getting political.
As a former Coordinating Producer at ESPN, and the first female studio producer at the network as well as on the team that launched Outside the Lines, I’ve seen the ugly underside of sports. In 1992, we pointed out to the late Art Modell, owner of the then Cleveland Browns (now Ravens) the tremendous disparity between the percentage of African Americans on the field for an NFL team (extremely high) and the percentage on the coaching staff or in the Front Office (very low). “Well, you’re talking 11% of the population!” Modell responded. Ah, but you’re talking nearly 70% of your workforce.
In recent years, I’ve received texts or calls from conservative friends complaining about this or that from ESPN. Caitlyn Jenner drew the most calls. Well, I’d respond, have you had any complaints about previous Arthur Ashe Award winners? Uh, Uh, the response would be. No one had any idea who had won before. Jim Volvano gave a classic speech in 1993 (I was there!) with his exhortation of “never give up!” But no one realized that speech was for the award. In fact, in my twenty-five years of attending off and on, I have never had anyone mention to me the winner of the Arthur Ashe Award other than Caitlyn Jenner. Actually I have never had anyone mention the award, period. But that year though, you would have thought it was the Nobel Prize.
Several friends also complained about Curt Schilling losing his job over his sharing an unflattering photo of a trans woman with the caption, “ Let Him In! To the restroom with your daughter or else you’re a narrow minded, judgemental, unloving, racist bigot who needs to die!!!” “But ESPN is denying him his First Amendment rights!” one friend, an Ivy League graduate no less, has exhorted on more than one occasion. Leftist agenda! Well, actually, his First Amendment rights stand. He was not arrested. But he had a contractual agreement with a company that set social media standards, which he had already violated and been warned about at least once. And he wasn’t presenting his opinion in a mature, rational way such as “I simply don’t agree with the bill for reason x and reason y.” He was presenting a caricature disrespectful to the trans community and his co-workers.
I should add that in my nearly seven years at ESPN, I had no idea of the politics of many of my co-workers including close friends who drove hours to attend my father’s funeral. I had many conversations with Keith Olbermann on a range of issues, none political. And I worked on the show most involved in social issues. Capital Cities, the then owner, had a very strict policy on keeping politics out of the work place. Not until this election with Facebook did some friends reveal their political biases. And it went both ways.
Social and political issues have intersected with sports since the first marathon in Ancient Greece. In the 1940s, we had Jackie Robinson as the first black baseball player. As hard as it is to believe today, he and Branch Rickey were villains to many. Then again, maybe it’s not so hard to believe when you delve deep into the comments sections of those ESPN layoff articles. In the 1960’s and 1970’s, we had Cassius Clay becoming Muhammad Ali and refusing to fight in Vietnam, we had the Black Power salute of John Carlos and Tommie Smith at the Olympics. They too were turned into villains at the time.
The challenge with sports and with many of those who follow sports: they are almost always behind societal changes. They seem to never be ahead, or even at pace. It seems surreal now that even during World War II that Major League Baseball was still segregated. It is surreal that it wasn’t until 1997 that they began banning Confederate flags at Ole Miss football games. It also seems surreal that in 2017 we have only had one out gay college football player in the NFL Draft. Ever. And that I believe brings comfort to the sports fans who complain about the “left” bias at ESPN. They like that sports has been behind the curve. America doesn’t need to be made great again on the field. It already is. They want the comfort of a world where women are cheerleaders or sideline reporters, African American are great players but not independent, uncomfortable thinkers, gays are people who could never ever play sports. They want to chase the Kaepernicks, Michael Sams and Caitlyn Jenners off the field the way that Ali, Carlos, and Smith were run off in the 1960s.
However respecting gay rights, transgender athletes, and independent black thinkers has become woven into much of society, albeit not all. When you bring these issues onto the field and into the SportsCenter studio, you’re not bringing in politics, you’re bringing in society. These folks, these views are here to stay. That’s what’s hard. That’s what scary. And so these fans lash out in fear to a group of jobless individuals on the one of the worst days of their lives.
But I have faith in my fellow sports fans. They came around on Robinson, Ali, Carlos, and Smith. Eventually issues that seem troubling today will be mainstream, even to them. Sports and even its most recalcitrant fans will catch up. They always do. It just takes time.