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ESPN drew widespread criticism over the past week for a decision not to carry the national anthem ahead of the Sugar Bowl on Thursday, which was postponed a day following a deadly terrorist attack on Bourbon Street on New Year’s Day.

On the surface, the decision is baffling. Sports remain one of the few unifiers in America today. The loud chants of “U-S-A” after the anthem were heartwarming, a moment all Americans could rally behind.

ESPN blamed the decision on a “timing issue,” a rather dishonest response given that the network controls the television clock. On Saturday, OutKick founder Clay Travis spoke to several sports television producers at CBS, NBC, Fox, and ESPN, all of whom were perplexed by the decision. 

“All of them were in disbelief over this ESPN failure,” Clay reported. “Carrying the pre-game moments the day after a terror attack in New Orleans that required the game to be moved is the easiest editorial decision in sports history. It’s a moment of historic significance, one that every person on the planet with even a semblance of intelligence would recognize was incredibly significant.”

I, however, am not in disbelief. Not with ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro in charge.

It’s unclear if Pitaro made the call himself, a question ESPN would not answer when contacted by OutKick, but a decision that presumably makes it to his office before finalization. The decision also matches many he has made. This is the culture he has enabled.

For background: Jimmy Pitaro replaced John Skipper as head of ESPN in 2018 after the former said he resigned over a cocaine extortion plot. Skipper is perhaps best known for the woke-ification, if you will, of ESPN. He was the chief advocate of Jemele Hill, Bomani Jones, Michael Smith, Katie Nolan, Sarah Spain, and Dan Le Batard (with whom he now runs a sports media business). Skipper’s grand plan was to not re-sign a deal to distribute the NFL, but instead focus on the NBA and soccer.

Put simply, Skipper’s vision for ESPN failed. Nearly every show he built around his preferred talents is now canceled. The NFL has since set record ratings, while the NBA has cratered. UFC has long outpaced the growth of American soccer, which Skipper swore wouldn’t transpire.

To his credit, Pitaro is an upgrade over Skipper. Pitaro successfully mended the relationship between ESPN and the NFL, the company’s most valuable league partner. He is also behind the signings of Pat McAfee, Jason Kelce, Troy Aikman, Joe Buck, and TNT’s “Inside the NBA.”

That said, Pitaro has slowly allowed Skipper’s vision to creep back into the fiber of the brand.

Jimmy Pitaro (Getty Images)

“Not a political organization” 

I was in the room at ESPN headquarters in Bristol, CT, in August 2018, during which Pitaro gave a speech to a room of reporters. The headline from the event was Pitaro’s vow that ESPN is “not a political organization” and his plans to steer the network back to a sports-only focus, barring when the crossover between sports and politics is unavoidable.

Pitaro did that, and the network was rewarded for it with significant year-over-year ratings gains. Then the tone of the network changed. Pitaro abruptly stopped keeping politics out of ESPN’s commentary.

Several on-air ESPN personalities and talent agents who spoke to OutKick on the condition of anonymity believe that Pitaro’s edict shifted during the summer of 2020, after George Floyd’s death. The first instance of this was when ESPN did an entire segment on Floyd, who had nothing to do with sports, and Maria Taylor uttered in tears, “My patience left my body when I watched George Floyd take his last breath.”

From that moment on, Jimmy Pitaro’s ESPN has closely resembled John Skipper’s. Here are some notable examples since that day:

– ESPN held a moment of silence over the passing of the erroneously dubbed “Don’t say gay” bill in Florida and the Supreme Court’s decision to give abortion rights back to the state, as per the Constitution. 

– Commentator Jalen Rose falsely accused the police of “murdering” Breonna Taylor.

– Sarah Spain called five Tampa Bay Rays players “bigots” for not wearing the gay pride logo on their uniforms because of their religious beliefs.

– J.A. Adande downplayed the genocide Uyghur Muslims face in the Xinjiang region of China, likening the torture to red-state voting laws in the U.S.

– Howard Bryant published an anti-America, January 6-focused column on the ESPN homepage on July 4, 2022.

– Max Kellerman declared that Donald Trump supporters are “susceptible to very low-quality information and easy to propagandize and almost immune to facts.”

– Stephen A. Smith lied about the Jan. 6 death toll while defending the deadly BLM riots.

– Mina Kimes endorsed multiple Democratic candidates for office.

– David Dennis Jr. stated with the assertion that white people have a responsibility to defend black people, even if black people want to harm them over previous events.

– Malika Andrews denounced the U.S. justice system on-air for acquitting Kyle Rittenhouse.

You get the point.

Sources say that in nearly every one of those instances, Pitaro defended the talent who egregiously violated his supposed ban on politics. In 2021, Pitaro suspended Sage Steele, a conservative commentator, for violating that same policy.

OutKick emailed Pitaro, president of content Burke Magnus, and SVP of communications Josh Krulewitz multiple times for comment on the examples and news we report in this article. The three parties did not respond.

Instead, they sent a PR rep named Bill Hofheimer, a very unpleasant man, our way on Tuesday after I posted a variation of this article on X. Hofheimer would not comment on the record or deny what sources inside ESPN say about Pitaro’s change after Floyd’s death.

“Different rules for different people”

The sentiment inside the building is that Pitaro still cringes at the idea of his on-air talents bringing up politics and race. However, he is reluctant to address it when it comes from a minority talent. For reference, Pitaro and Magnus were much more comfortable emailing Sam Ponder reminding her to be careful about her opposition to trans athletes in female sports, sources say. ESPN had no comment on that, either.

And given that the vast majority of ESPN opinionists are black, there is a sense that they have free rein to say and post whatever they choose. Put simply, they believe Pitraro is afraid to reprimand them.

Hence, Mark Jones’ X account. Here’s a review of some of his posts since 2020:

  • Baseless accusations that stadium police officers were going to shoot him dead because he is black.
  • Tweets telling Rush Limbaugh to “rot in hell” the day his wife announced he had died of lung cancer.
  • Lies about the police murdering Jacob Blake, who is still alive.
  • Posts calling Stephen A. Smith a “coon.”
  • Posts calling his white colleagues and bosses “blind to racism in front of him.”
  • Tweets celebrating Nick Bosa tearing his ACL as “payback for standing for the national anthem” and supporting Donald Trump.
  • Claims that the Batman character is rooted in racism.
  • Claims that Gov. Ron DeSantis is a “member of the KKK.” (He’s not.)
  • Claims that Aaron Rodgers is a member of QAnon. (He’s not.)
  • Statements that white people “appropriated” Jesus.
  • Debunked claims that the police shot Breonna Taylor when they saw her skin color. (They never saw her.)
  • A tweet from Bishop Talbert Swan that white people are “demonic forces of evil.”
  • A tweet comparing Jason Whitlock to a house slave from the film “Django Unchained.”
  • Tweets calling Queen Elizabeth a “racist” on the day she died.

That certainly doesn’t resemble an employee afraid of his boss. The same can be said about “SportsCenter” anchor Stan Verrett. Verrett, 59, as he has for years, spent much of his weekend obsessively tweeting at me, calling me a “racist,” spreading a lie that OutKick fired me (not that I know of), and sending me “f**k you” direct messages. 

Pitaro suspended Adrian Wojnarowski in 2020 for that exact same message but has so far said not a word to Verrett.

OutKick asked Pitrao, Magnus, Krulewitz, and Hofheimer if they were worried about disciplining Verrett the same way they did Wojnarowski because he is black and a frequent user of the race card. None of them would deny it.

Consider that while Jones and Verrett handle themselves as imbeciles, other ESPN employees live in fear that Pitaro will punish them over their social media activity. But, of course, there is a difference. Several on-air employees have contacted OutKick, expressing frustration that they know they cannot post about their opposition to trans athletes in female sports and the way black WNBA players treated Caitlin Clark this past season.

An ESPN reporter told OutKick that an ESPN executive contacted them last summer, telling them to “unlike” a tweet that Clay Travis posted on X. Apparently, that same exec did not tell Mark Jones to unlike a post calling MAGA women “skanks.”

ESPN employees know what political and racial opinions they can express on Pitaro’s airwaves. Thereby, the likes of Ryan Clark and Kendrick Perkins feel empowered to racialize the NFL and NBA MVP races to benefit their favorite black players, and why not a single person on the network pushes back.

Jimmy Pitaro has different rules for black employees and white employees; he has different standards for liberals and conservatives.

It’s no wonder ESPN didn’t show the national anthem or moment of silence. It’s no wonder the network has mostly referred to the event as a “truck attack.” 

Police say the suspect was an ISIS sympathizer and a person of color. ESPN knows there are no political points to score by highlighting that. Had he been a white MAGA supporter, Ryan Clark would still be outraged on ESPN a week later.

Pitaro’s ESPN did, however, find time to air the BLM protests ahead of the NBA bubble in 2020. Of course, it did. 

ESPN is again closer to MSNBC editorially than a standard sports network. This is John Skipper all over again. Except the man calling the shots is quietly ashamed of his cowardice.