This week’s avalanche of layoffs at ESPN has been a story in search of an explanation. Some say that a major reason for the network’s financial woes over the past few years has been, as Clay Travis noted, its “absurd decision to turn into MSESPN, a left wing sports network.”
The Ringer’s Bryan Curtis, who endorses the recent leftward drift of sports media, thinks that whether ESPN is “a liberal network” is “a legitimate and interesting question that deserves examination,” but finds what he calls the “libtard ESPN got what it deserved!” argument shallow, even knee-jerkish.
In a Wednesday piece, Curtis sneered at the idea that Colin Kaepernick’s activism was a serious drag on last season’s NFL television ratings and opined that “one of the curses of living in interesting times (Donald Trump Edition) is that every media organization bears the mark of a secret political agenda, according to that one guy on the message board who has figured it all out.”
Curtis sees an ulterior motive among the ESPN-should-have-stuck-to-sports crowd (bolding added):
Are ESPN’s layoffs the direct result of [pundit] Bomani Jones having a particularly righteous night on the radio, or the network showing Michael Sam kissing his partner? No, no, no. [Hockey analyst] Pierre LeBrun does not (as far as I know) wear a pussy hat. If the take comes from someone who works for a competing cable sports network, be twice as skeptical…
…If you see someone saying ESPN got comeuppance for its “agenda,” they have, in nearly every case, just revealed their own.
