Dan Le Batard doesn’t want to keep politics out of sports.
The radio host defied ESPN policy last week by blasting President Trump on air. After the president called out Democratic congresswomen on Twitter, telling them to “go back” to where they came from, fans at one of his rallies blasted immigrant Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, by chanting, “Send her back.”
The next day, Le Batard took the opportunity to criticize the incident on The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz.
“This felt un-American what happened last night,” Le Batard said. “There’s a racial division in this country that’s being instigated by the president and we here at ESPN haven’t had the stomach for that fight.”
No athletes were at the rally (that we know of), and because Le Batard took a purely political turn, his company was not happy. Le Batard met with ESPN President Jimmy Pitaro this week, and he’ll continue to host his radio show. But ESPN has retained its apolitical policy, and there’s no indication that Le Batard doesn’t still call bull.
“We don’t talk about what is happening unless there’s some sort of weak, cowardly sports angle that we can run it through when sports has always been the place where this stuff changes,” he said last week. “We won’t talk about it unless [Seattle Seahawks quarterback] Russell Wilson is saying something about it on his Instagram. Then we have the power to run with it … Weak-ass shield. It is antithetical to what we should be.”
Trump’s comments and the ensuing backlash dominated the news cycle for a week, but does that mean a sports commentator should weigh in? Le Batard thinks so, and he appears to feel that doing so is a moral imperative: “And if you’re not calling it abhorrent, obviously racist, dangerous rhetoric, you’re complicit.”
On one hand, people with a large platform may feel, legitimately, that they have a responsibility to call out injustice. On the other hand, as the rest of the media is so consumed with politics, some sports fans may be aching for a break. When the world seems to be shuttered in by outrage and offense, it’s nice to find an apolitical space.
According to research that ESPN sent to Los Angeles Times sports columnist Arash Markazi, “74% of sports fans across party lines prefer not to hear about politics on ESPN. That’s a view shared by avid fans (85%) as well as Democrats (69%) and Republicans (84%).”
Le Batard, whose parents are exiles from Cuba, was understandably upset by the crowd chanting at a Trump rally. He has a right to speak out, but perhaps his show wasn’t the best place to do it.
