Former ESPN host Sage Steele takes ‘new media’ seat at White House briefing

Former ESPN host Sage Steele has seemingly completed her transition from covering sports to covering politics.

The longtime SportsCenter host, who left ESPN in 2023 over disagreements regarding ESPN’s policies over political speech, was featured front-and-center at Wednesday’s White House press briefing.

Steele is sitting in the Trump administration’s “new media” seat, which the administration says will allow emerging media—such as podcast hosts or TikTok—to have representation in the briefing room. Critics suggest that the Trump administration will use the seat to fill the briefing room with loyalists.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt began Wednesday’s briefing by introducing Steele.

Former ESPN host Sage Steele is the recipient of the “new media” seat in today’s White House press briefing.pic.twitter.com/fQSBTwscH8

— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) February 5, 2025

“In the seat today, we have a longtime national television broadcaster — I’m sure many of you recognized her when she came in — Sage Steele, who is now the host of an incredibly successful podcast, The Sage Steele Show, on YouTube and all podcast platforms,” Leavitt said. “And previously, Sage was a fixture at ESPN from 2007 to 2023, primarily hosting SportsCenter, which we all know well, before leaving the company to exercise her First Amendment rights more freely. We are honored to welcome her to the briefing room today. She will be joining the President at the big EO signing later this afternoon…so Sage, why don’t you kick us off on this very exciting day for women and girls across the country.”

The Press Secretary was alluding to an executive order that President Trump plans to sign on Wednesday that is designed to prevent transgender people who were born male from competing in women’s sports.

Steele then thanked Leavitt for the invitation to sit in the briefing room.

“Karoline, thank you for welcoming people like me with a little bit of a different perspective, different background, in this seat. It really does mean a lot, thank you.”

The former SportsCenter anchor went on to ask a question about how President Trump can ensure his executive order will be effective when Congress has yet to pass a similar law.

Between Leavitt’s effusive introduction of Steele and Steele’s chummy response and softball question, the administration isn’t doing much to silence critics of the “new media” seat. In fact, this type of interaction is exactly what people predicted would happen.

This also marks the completion of Steele’s transition from sports broadcaster to political pundit. Since leaving ESPN, she has regularly appeared on Fox News and frequently hosted politicians and political commentators on her podcast.

But now, sitting in the White House briefing room, it’s difficult to see Sage Steele as a sports journalist anymore.