Paul Finebaum has a decision to make, but he’s not ready to talk about it yet.
Front Office Sports reported this week that Finebaum is “very close” to leaving ESPN for a U.S. Senate run in Alabama. When AL.com reached out to Finebaum for comment on the report, he punted the question.
“I’m more than happy to talk about the Auburn coaching search,” Finebaum told AL.com.
FOS’s reporting suggests Finebaum plans to wait until after the college football season wraps up before making a final decision. His ESPN contract runs through mid-2027, so he’d be walking away from guaranteed money with the network that’s held SEC media rights since 2013.
Finebaum first revealed his political interest during a September interview with Clay Travis on OutKick, calling a Senate run “very intriguing” and saying he was “thinking about it constantly.” He told Travis the September assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk left him feeling empty about his work.
Tommy Tuberville is vacating the Senate seat to run for Alabama governor. The former Auburn coach has backed Finebaum’s potential candidacy, telling reporters the ESPN host has “100 percent name ID in Alabama” and would “be a force in the race if he decided to get into it.”
Finebaum told Travis he voted for Trump and would find it “impossible to tell him no” if the president asked him to run. He also revealed he’s a registered Republican in North Carolina, where he works for the SEC Network, though he recently moved back to the Birmingham area.
The 70-year-old has hosted The Paul Finebaum Show since ESPN launched the SEC Network in 2013. He also appears regularly on Get Up, First Take, and SportsCenter, where he’s become the network’s most prominent water carrier for the SEC.
After Finebaum’s initial OutKick interview in October, reports surfaced that ESPN had pulled him from his regular television appearances. OutKick claimed the network was unhappy with Finebaum discussing his political leanings and potential Senate run. ESPN denied the reports, calling them “TOTALLY FALSE” in a statement, though Finebaum’s on-air presence noticeably decreased for several days before returning to his usual schedule.
Whether Finebaum ultimately leaves ESPN for politics or stays in sports media will likely be determined in the coming weeks. For now, he’s sticking to what he knows best, which is taking up for the SEC in hypothetical arguments about hypothetical matchups.
About Sam Neumann
Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.