ESPN has drowned the ESPYs in politics for years now, but the 2022 show found one issue it won’t touch: China’s genocidal regime.
Well, unless the coverage of said genocidal regime is positive.
Eileen Gu won the ESPY for best breakthrough athlete during the awards show on Wednesday.
Gu won two gold medals in the 2022 Winter Olympics — for China. In order to do this, she likely had to renounce her U.S. citizenship, which neither she nor China’s regime has confirmed she did.
Rather than representing Team USA, Gu chose to represent the People’s Republic of China at a time when its continued human rights atrocities were again under the microscope. For her troubles, she raked in tens of millions of dollars in Chinese endorsement deals.
Were the ceremony and its awards only focused on sports achievements, perhaps ESPN could get away with it. But the ceremony was once again mired in politics. The show invoked the 50-year anniversary of Title IX to have activist athletes advocate abortion rights, allowing males to play women’s sports (which, from most people’s perspective, is not even consistent with Title IX), and “equal pay for college athletes.” After nominees are chosen by a selection committee, the winner is chosen exclusively by fan votes, meaning Megan Rapinoe’s political following certainly helped her take home the award for best play.
If ESPN and the ESPYs truly cared about the social justice hogwash that their moribund network now places well ahead of sports, Gu would not have been nominated at all. Anyone who would willingly choose to represent a genocidal regime during its propaganda-infested Olympic Games should not be honored in any way. Such people should be condemned for that very act.
But placating China and papering over genocide is actually a value at ESPN.
ESPN has billions tied to China through its parent company, Disney, its financial relationship with the NBA, and its own direct deals with Chinese companies such as Tencent. When Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) criticized the NBA’s relationship with China in 2020, ESPN NBA insider Adrian Wojnarowski responded, “F*** you.”
It’s understandable why he was upset: When the NBA’s ties to China first came under scrutiny in 2019, Wojnarowski lost his show, which was broadcast by Tencent, a Chinese company. ESPN had described it as the most watched basketball show in the world.
When ESPN covered the NBA’s China ties in 2019, the outlet used the China-approved “nine-dash line” map, which shows China owning Taiwan and the South China Sea. This map is an expression of China’s imperialist ambitions, and China’s current rulers become enraged by those who fail to use it.
Earlier this year, ESPN panelist J.A. Adande downplayed China’s genocide of the Uyghurs so he could attack voting laws in Georgia in Texas. None of his fellow panelists nor the show’s host pushed back on his ludicrous claims about either.
This is not the first time ESPN has handed China a propaganda win, and it likely won’t be the last. The worldwide leader in sports still wants to pretend it has something important to say about politics. Perhaps it could stop serving as a platform for Chinese propaganda first.
