clay travis-fox news-bob iger

For a minute there, Clay Travis was a pundit du jour on Fox News. He appeared several times on Tucker Carlson Tonight in August and September to criticize ESPN for its infamous “Robert Lee” controversy and its handling of Jemele Hill’s tweets about Donald Trump.

But Travis’ appearances on the network have seemingly slowed over the past eight weeks or so, and he claims to know exactly why: because Fox’s parent company was attempting to butter up Disney, ESPN’s parent company, for a potential acquisition.

Travis shared that allegation Monday afternoon on Periscope, after news broke that Disney was seeking to buy most of 21st Century Fox.

I’ve been going on Fox News and killing it. Suddenly my invites to Fox News stopped. And I emailed them because I got tipped off. I got told I was not allowed to go on Fox News anymore because Disney and Bob Iger had complained about me going after ESPN. And that Fox was trying to keep Bob Iger happy by not putting me on Fox News.

That didn’t make any sense to me at the time because why would they do that? Why would Fox News not want me going off on ESPN, calling them MSESPN and whatnot? Now, I think it makes a lot of sense because there were high-level talks going on between the two companies, and if Fox is trying to curry favor with Disney and get Disney to buy their broadcast assets, one way they could do that is by trying to restrict the distribution of my message.

Discussions between Fox and Disney reportedly don’t include Fox News or the other Fox television networks, but it’s still possible Fox higher-ups would feel a certain pressure to cede to Iger’s requests or demands. And you can see why the Disney CEO would use whatever leverage he could to get the country’s most popular cable news channel to lay off his prized network.

Then again, it is certainly possible Travis is embellishing an off-hand comment or unsubstantiated rumor. Maybe Fox News simply bumped him because they don’t like boobs quite as much as he does.

Either way, the Fox News audience will apparently not be getting more Travis anytime soon.

About Alex Putterman

Alex is a writer and editor for The Comeback and Awful Announcing. He has written for The Atlantic, VICE Sports, MLB.com, SI.com and more. He is a proud alum of Northwestern University and The Daily Northwestern. You can find him on Twitter @AlexPutterman.