With Donald Trump back in office, memories of ESPN talent fighting with the president online are on the mind. The overall political chatter at ESPN has died down, but for one Stephen A. Smith, it’s open season on all the big issues.
In an attempt to pin down the Worldwide Leader’s current policy on political commentary, sports media reporter Richard Deitsch reached out to the network directly. Deitsch shared his findings on the latest episode of his podcast, Sports Media with Richard Deitsch.
Deitsch paraphrased a statement he received from ESPN’s senior vice president of communications Josh Krulewitz as follows:.
“In terms of like the front-facing people, both on-air people and even writers, we review news network requests on a case-by-case basis, and the overwhelming majority of ones that come in are focused on sports topics. In those instances, our commentators are representing the work that they do for ESPN and/or their perspective on the sports news of the day. Specific to Stephen A. Smith, Stephen A. Smith has an agreement to host a podcast separate from ESPN … which was approved. It veers into non-sports topics of his choosing, by design. His news network and other non-sports focused appearances are an extension of what he discusses on his podcast and are not focused on his primary daily ESPN work.”
The conversation comes after Smith made regular appearances on news programs throughout election season, and recently appeared on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher.
Further, on Inauguration Day — which coincided with the college football national title game — ESPN aired a short message from President Donald Trump at halftime.
So has the network loosened up on political talk from its top talent heading into Trump’s second term in office, or is Smith really that unique?
Both Deitsch and his teammate at The Athletic, Andrew Marchand, agreed Smith was a unicorn at the company.
“I think Stephen A. has said, and you can kind of tell, he wants to do other things outside of sports … it’s different rules for Stephen A.,” Marchand said.
Smith launched his own podcast after leaving ESPN Radio and recently inked a deal with iHeartMedia. The show has over a million subscribers on YouTube and features Smith weighing in on sports, politics and culture. Under a new deal with ESPN that will reportedly be finalized soon, Smith is expected to continue the independent podcast.
But beyond Smith, a star who has earned that freedom, Deitsch believes ESPN’s statement has some holes.
“If you are discussing, let’s say FIFA or the IOC and you are making political comments about them, do you have to ask the communications department permission to have an opinion on that? Likely not,” Deitsch said. “But if you were to comment on Trump’s cabinet, you probably would be [in trouble]. The idea of who decides what’s political or not is itself judgmental.”
While anyone can take a jab at the network for having a double standard with Smith, this last point highlights why ESPN will always have to approach this issue on a case-by-case basis. In addition to building out the infrastructure himself and earning the trust of ESPN management to comment on wider news, Smith also developed an audience outside of sports that others do not have.
So while in theory, it can seem like Smith gets a different set of rules, few others even have a podcast or the relationships with news producers necessary to be invited onto political shows. And Smith isn’t the only one who ever does so, anyway.
Pablo Torre, now part-time at ESPN as a rotating panelist on Around the Horn and Pardon the Interruption, is a regular on MSNBC. Earlier this football season, Kirk Herbstreit spoke out on X and in an interview with Dan Dakich about transgender athletes, and didn’t hold back with his opinion.
ESPN talent is largely paid to give opinions for a living, so any evidence that the network is shutting down their employees’ commentary makes news. But like most jobs, even in media, management is likely to only stand behind the words of those who have earned the company’s trust.
