Alabama sports broadcaster Paul Finebaum says ESPN sidelined him from several of his regular television appearances last year after he told OutKick he was weighing a run for the U.S. Senate in Alabama as a Republican.
The episode dates to last September, when Finebaum told OutKick founder Clay Travis during a podcast interview that he was considering leaving ESPN to seek the Senate seat. During that same conversation, Finebaum revealed he had voted for President Donald Trump in 2024.
A week after the interview aired, Travis reported that ESPN had pulled Finebaum off his usual lineup of shows. “Per sources: Disney/ESPN has removed @finebaum from appearing on @ESPN since his @outkick interview expressing interest in running as a Republican for senate in Alabama. ESPN has canceled all network appearances on all shows, including some that have occurred for a decade plus,” Travis wrote on X at the time.
ESPN pushed back immediately. Network public relations executive Bill Hofheimer responded to Travis’ post by calling it “TOTALLY FALSE,” adding, “This is not true at all.”
This week, Finebaum backed up Travis’ account. Asked about the incident by Awful Announcing, Finebaum said: “Of course, I was sidelined. I’d done the same shows every day for 13 years, and the next thing you know, I’m not on there after a college football weekend.”
When OutKick asked ESPN for comment Thursday in response to Finebaum’s remarks, the network repeated its earlier denial, stating: “As we stated last year, Finebaum was never banned.”
A dispute over wording
The disagreement largely turns on definitions. Finebaum was not booked on regular appearances for shows such as SportsCenter and Get Up in the week following his OutKick interview. He did, however, continue to host his own program on the SEC Network and on ESPN Radio, meaning he never fully left ESPN’s airwaves.
ESPN can point out that it never issued a formal “ban” and instead simply stopped booking him for certain shows while lining up other personalities in case he departed the company to run for office. That is reportedly the explanation the network gave to people who asked about the situation at the time.
Finebaum ultimately decided against running for the Senate seat.
Comparisons to other ESPN personalities
Some observers have noted that ESPN has handled similar situations differently with other on-air personalities. Stephen A. Smith has spoken publicly for years about a potential run for president as a Democrat, but ESPN did not respond by pulling him from his regular appearances or preparing replacement hosts.
Finebaum has become a familiar voice to Alabama sports fans over more than a decade on ESPN and SEC Network platforms, and speculation about his future with the network has recurred in recent years, including previous reports about potential departures for political office or rival media outlets.
