ESPN president Jimmy Pitaro denies scrapping Colin Kaepernick docuseries for political reasons

For a variety of reasons, Spike Lee’s Colin Kaepernick docuseries for ESPN was always going to be difficult to pull off.

Still, the timing of ESPN’s decision to pull the plug understandably raised more than just a few eyebrows.

Yet despite news of the Worldwide Leader in Sports scrapping the eight-part docuseries coming shortly after the network’s equity deal with the NFL, Jimmy Pitaro insists that the two developments aren’t connected. Asked about the subject during an appearance on CNBC on Thursday, the ESPN president denied that his company ditched the project to curry political favor as the NFL deal awaits regulatory approval.

“Absolutely not. We made that decision many months prior to the NFL announcements,” Pitaro said on Squawk on the Street. “I think what happened was Spike was, I believe on the red carpet, and was asked this question somewhat out of the blue and that’s why it became news. But again, there were creative differences. We made the decision in partnership with Colin and Spike to not move forward many months before any NFL announcement and it had nothing to do with the recent news.”

@cnbc #ESPN Chairman Jimmy Pitaro on Thursday said the sports media company’s decision to shelve its planned documentary about former #NFL quarterback and racial justice activist Colin #Kaepernick was “absolutely not” due to wanting to please the #Trump administration. Watch the full interview at the #linkinbio or tap on your screen. #CNBC ♬ original sound – cnbc

Ultimately, this is a situation where we’ll likely never get the full story, as Lee has already indicated that he is bound to a non-disclosure agreement connected to the project. And while it was initially believed that the Academy Award-winning director would shop the docuseries elsewhere, he has since told Business Insider that he is moving on from the project altogether.

While it seems reasonable to believe that there were creative differences between ESPN and Lee and/or Kaepernick, there also appear to have been editorial issues between the director and the subject of the project. Lee reportedly sought to use Kaepernick’s story as a vehicle for a much wider societal commentary, while the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback’s team wanted the project to remain focused primarily on him, one person familiar with the situation told Awful Announcing.

Puck’s Matt Belloni reported similar hurdles last September.

“Kaepernick, who is a producer on the project and maintains approval rights, is said to have wanted the film to be more limited to his experience,” Belloni wrote last year. “He also asked that certain things be added after Lee finished his final cut. Kaepernick and his longtime partner are apparently hyper-meticulous about how he is portrayed in the media.”

Factor in that Kaepernick has his own confidentially agreement with the NFL stemming from their settlement over his collusion grievance and this entire project was clearly going to be a tough needle to thread regardless of what platform it called home. Still, that’s not necessarily enough to change the perception regarding the timing of its cancellation, even if it was a decision that Pitaro insists was made well before ESPN’s NFL deal was even agreed to.