The discussion around Milwaukee Bucks’ guard Patrick Beverley and his actions Thursday night has now taken a wild media dimension. Beverley caused controversy on the court by twice throwing a ball into the stands at fans, then added to that off the court by refusing to talk to ESPN producer Malinda Adams (and repeatedly shoving her microphone away) because she didn’t subscribe to his Barstool Sports-presented podcast.
That controversy has now led to multiple days of debate over if Beverley will again be welcome on ESPN platforms. And it’s now led to ESPN calling out Front Office Sports’ reporting as “erroneous,” saying “he isn’t banned and never was,” and FOS sticking by it. Here are those latest developments:
A statement from ESPN: pic.twitter.com/ZdlyqaTYvM
— ESPN PR (@ESPNPR) May 4, 2024
Update: On Saturday, ESPN walked back its stance, stating that Beverley is not banned and that no action was taken against him in regards to his incident with Malinda Adams.
This contradicts a policy set on Friday of which FOS had direct knowledge. FOS stands by its reporting. https://t.co/cMpLeQBy6Z
— Front Office Sports (@FOS) May 4, 2024
As a refresher, Beverley has made a number of ESPN appearances over the years, most notably during the 2022 NBA playoffs. Many of those appearances were provocative, seeing him go off on players and hosts. But they spawned a Washington Post profile (questionable even at the time) on him as a so-called “anti-media star.” And after that, Beverley launched his Barstool-backed The Pat Bev Podcast with Rone (with cohost Adam Ferrone), but continued to make some appearances on ESPN platforms, including a bizarre one in December on a Kevin Hart-hosted alternate broadcast where Beverley brought up allegations of Josh Giddey having a relationship with a minor (Newport Beach police eventually decided not to charge Giddey there).
Heading into this week, and before any of the drama around Adams, an ESPN source tells AA that the company did not have a specific ongoing contractual relationship with Beverley. His 2022 appearances came (as per that above WaPo piece) under a standard “broadleaf” contract paying guests usually in the range of $3,000-$10,000 per day, but one that only ran for 15 days.
Once the Bucks were eliminated Thursday, ESPN certainly could have offered Beverley a similar deal, or a shorter one, or a higher-value one, if they had wanted to. But they could have done that in the 2023 playoffs, and they didn’t. And it’s unclear if Beverley would have taken that anyway considering he does now have his own podcast platform, which he did not when he was making those 2022 appearances. With all that said, though, AA’s reporting indicates the company did not have current plans to bring Beverley on their airwaves even before anything happened Thursday.
Following Beverley’s actions Thursday (which he did eventually apologize to Adams for), bringing him on ESPN obviously would have become thornier still. Countless ESPN colleagues chimed in in defense of Adams (as did many others in the media), and the company put out a statement through spokesperson Ben Cafardo indicating their “full support” for her:
Malinda is a well-respected colleague and a true professional. She has our full support. https://t.co/1TavlU9nSW
— Ben Cafardo (@Ben_ESPN) May 3, 2024
After that is when we got the discussion of an ESPN “ban” of Beverley. And that specific language is what’s really at play here. The idea of a “ban” in general is something media companies (and many individuals in media) have strong reactions to, much more so than if the thing in question just doesn’t happen. So that made the Front Office Sports report here Friday from Michael McCarthy very notable for its particular language:
Following his disrespectful treatment of an ESPN producer, Bucks guard Patrick Beverley is now persona non grata at the country’s biggest sports network, Front Office Sports has learned.
ESPN management has banned Beverley from making further guest appearances on studio shows such as First Take and Get Up, according to sources familiar with the network’s thinking.
“ESPN management has banned” is definitely a strong claim. It’s one that goes well beyond anything AA has found so far, with our reporting suggesting Beverley was just not being currently scheduled or considered. It was also quickly pushed back on by Sports Business Journal’s Austin Karp and The Athletic’s Andrew Marchand. But that led to McCarthy pushing back himself:
Report is accurate. If ESPN is saying otherwise now, that's back-pedaling.
— Michael McCarthy (@MMcCarthyREV) May 3, 2024
So when's the next time PatBev will be a guest-analyst on First Take? Or Get Up?
— Michael McCarthy (@MMcCarthyREV) May 3, 2024
There is absolutely a crucial distinction between “banned” and “not going to be on any time soon.” The former is a policy implemented by management; the latter is an editorial decision from show leadership (although that can often be influenced by management short-term in ways falling short of an actual long-running policy). And there is no particular right to appear on ESPN; they make programming decisions on who they want there. So the “When’s the next time?” argument isn’t particularly relevant to if the initial report was correct or not: ESPN could never use Beverley again without ever “banning” him.
McCarthy’s claim of “back-pedaling,” though, is at least a valid argument to make. The ESPN policy now is clearly “He isn’t banned.” But if McCarthy has concrete evidence that there was an actual ban implemented, it is significant and notable that that changed. And it’s understandable why, if he has that evidence, he would stick to his guns (and why his outlet would defend him). However, it is also understandable why ESPN would so heavily push back on this if they truly believe McCarthy’s report to be inaccurate.
Policies do change, and they can change for several reasons. One is after public criticism. Here, there was public criticism from Barstool Sports’ Dave Portnoy (again, the outlet that backs Beverley’s podcast) in particular, accusing ESPN of “censorship.” (That’s an absurd claim for a private media outlet that has no obligation to give anyone airtime, but it got a lot of attention.) And ESPN has changed some “bans” in the past after criticism, particularly altering a policy prohibiting talent from appearing on competing platforms in 2021 after then-competitor Pat McAfee complained about it publicly, and saying “there is no ban going forward.”*
Another way a policy can change is when it goes up the chain of command. Like governments, militaries, or even sports teams, businesses and media organizations have hierarchical models. Lower-level figures are authorized to make many decisions on their own without consulting with those above them (which could slow the pace of decisions to a halt), but higher-level figures can and sometimes do reverse some of those decisions.
That’s a key question with any supposed “backpedaling” of the kind McCarthy suggests here: was the reversal at the same level, or did a higher-level figure intervene? Because if it’s the latter, that raises questions about if the first “ban” was actually within the authority of the initial figure. And if it wasn’t, perhaps it shouldn’t have been reported as a wide “ban.” However, if that figure had authority to implement a “ban,” and did, and that was later either reversed by them or overruled by a superior, McCarthy’s reporting would be accurate.
The latest
At the same time, though, ESPN can’t be expected to prove a negative. There’s no way for them to adequately show the world “We never said this”; even if they released every internal e-mail and phone conversation regarding Beverley (which they’re obviously not going to do), it could have happened in some face-to-face meeting that wasn’t recorded. We see those gaps even at institutions subject to Freedom of Information Act requests (such as universities), which ESPN (as a private company) is not.
So there’s no way for ESPN to definitively show they’re right and McCarthy is wrong. But it’s quite understandable why they are pushing back this way. A “ban” would have been a massive step from them, significantly beyond just not currently planning to use Beverley. And it would have drawn some of the further criticism they were taking on “sticking together,” like this from Dez Bryant:
Imagine every athlete sticking together like ESPN
We need to start canceling reporters who falsely report and strategically tear down athletes
ESPN showed us exactly what power look like as a unit!
Take notes https://t.co/3EBcmd0m3g
— Dez Bryant (@DezBryant) May 3, 2024
Ultimately, this isn’t the world’s biggest deal. It’s clear that Beverley is not currently banned (although he does remain unlikely to appear on ESPN any time particularly soon). It’s also clear that McCarthy’s initial report of a “ban” drew quick and strong pushback from other reporters and their ESPN sources, and that the “ban” idea wasn’t likely to remain in place (if it ever was actually in place) once it got to higher levels of the company (or once higher-level figures reconsidered, if they did actually implement this at first) even before Portnoy weighed in. And it seems apparent that Beverley wasn’t destined for a quick ESPN appearance in the next week or so, “ban” or not.
But while the “ban” or not may be largely a semantic divide, that doesn’t mean it’s irrelevant. Ban has a notable and specific meaning in this context. And whether that ban was put in place or not does matter.
Whether that ban ever happened or not remains in dispute. McCarthy is sticking by that happening before a reversal, and other reporters and ESPN officials are insisting that it didn’t happen. Without further evidence presented on one side or the other, that’s going to come down to who readers believe. But it is definitely notable to see such strong corporate pushback on a report, and to see an outlet sticking by their reporting despite that.
[Front Office Sports, ESPN PR on Twitter/X]
*The McAfee-discussed ban was just one of many at ESPN over the years. In 2009, the company “decided to stop utilizing [New York] Post reporters on any of our outlets” for a while, in response to that publication printing images of then-ESPN reporter Erin Andrews that were obtained by a stalker. (They didn’t phrase that as a “ban,” but it certainly was one; it was a company policy against specific guests.)
In the years following that, there were several prominent reports of ESPN policies banning their talent from appearing on competing companies’ shows, from Dan Patrick in 2010 through Colin Cowherd and Dan Le Batard in the latter part of the decade through McAfee in 2021. None of those are directly related to this, with the Post one being the closest (albeit under very different circumstances), but they’re worth keeping in mind in discussions around ESPN “bans.”