SBJ reports that ESPN has been in discussions with controversial radio host and amateur sociologist Colin Cowherd to “increase his television presence” in Bristol.  Why is this?  Because evidently Cowherd has lobbied the network to give him his own Bill Maher style show where he can talk sports and… gulp… politics.  ESPN is listening.

ESPN Radio host Colin Cowherd told a SXSW panel that he had spoken to ESPN President John Skipper about doing a Bill Maher-style show for ESPN in the same way that Grantland focuses on entertainment. Maher hosts an HBO show that focuses on politics.

I called ESPN to see how serious those talks are. The idea of a political show has been considered in Bristol, but it seems unlikely to happen. ESPN spokesman Mike Soltys: “Colin has suggested that idea for himself. We have been in discussions with him to increase his television presence.”

This idea has disaster written all over it.

Cowherd is second maybe only to Skip Bayless in terms of being bulletproof and being able to get away with anything he says at ESPN.  But he’s gotten into trouble when going on sociological and political tangents.  Such comments from Cowherd have been among some of the most ignorant in the history of ESPN.  For example…

People in Ohio and Indiana are bringing unemployment on themselves.

New Orleans is America’s least safest city.

– African-American NFL players look up to Roger Goodell as a father figure.

Oregon is great because “white people”

Hasn’t America suffered enough from Cowherd’s uninformed cultural viewpoints?  Please ESPN, we can’t take much more.

[SBJ]