For a second consecutive week, College GameDay added political activism to previewing the top college football games of the weekend.
Last week, Nick Saban and Pat McAfee went political, advocating for passage of the Protect College Sports Act, which is currently stalled in Congress. Saban is a spokesperson for the advocacy group pushing the legislation through.
This week, GameDay took it a step further by interviewing one of the bill’s sponsors, Republican senator Ted Cruz of Texas.
Cruz was on set with GameDay in Austin for the massive Texas-Ohio State clash. But football took a backseat to politics for ten minutes as Cruz sat down for a one-on-one interview with Rece Davis.
During the interview, Ted Cruz freely made his case for his legislation. Despite wearing burnt orange and a Longhorns lapel pin, he was booed throughout the interview and even received a “Ted you suck” chant from the GameDay crowd.
ESPN had Ted Cruz on ‘College GameDay’ in a conversation with Rece Davis for nearly 10 minutes.
Cruz was heavily booed by the crowd — and heard “Ted, you suck!” chants — in Austin. pic.twitter.com/npQesiYMsG
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) September 12, 2026
It’s less about the interview’s content than what it represents at the intersection of sports, politics, and television in 2026.
It’s incredibly ironic that ESPN would give an unopposed platform to a Republican senator from Texas to talk about politics in the very same week when ABC cowered away from airing a Jimmy Kimmel interview with a Democratic Senate candidate, James Talarico, and was forced to air it on YouTube thanks to threats from the federal government.
Of course, Disney, ABC, and ESPN can lean on the fact that the FCC’s Equal Time provision, which was used to force the Talarico interview to YouTube, does not apply to cable networks. If it did, Fox News or MS Now would look very different. However, the optics can’t be more imbalanced for the network. And it makes it look like they are willing to do the work of those currently in power in Washington for them.
Furthermore, in the last two weeks, College GameDay has presented this as an entirely one-sided issue with Saban, Cruz, and McAfee all stumping in support of the bill and no real acknowledgment of the issues or opposition to it.
Given how hyper-polarized the American political system is, and the platform that College GameDay has, it’s a shocking decision from the network. That’s especially true given public statements from Disney and ESPN in past years about wanting to stay politically neutral after years of criticism for letting politics seep into their sports coverage.
Is ESPN now fully comfortable swinging in the other direction now that Ted Cruz is getting interviewed on College GameDay and Pat McAfee is being used as a mascot by Donald Trump? Is it because they have something to gain themselves from the legislation and the impact it would have on college athletics? And could you imagine the reaction if ESPN interviewed union leaders and Congressional Black Caucus representatives about their thoughts on the bill?
These are all legitimate questions the network has opened itself up to now that it has chosen to dive headfirst into these political waters. But whatever the reason, ESPN deciding to use one of its most popular shows as a political platform is truly unexplainable.
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