I hope Bomani doesn't lose his job!
- Thread starter bubba2k5
- Start date
The Cleveland Indians Reportedly One Step Closer to Becoming the Cleveland Spiders
By Halle Kiefer@hallekiefer
José Ramírez hits a double during the Cleveland Indians’ September 29th game against the New York Yankees. Photo: Joe Sargent/MLB Photos via Getty Images
It’s only been a minute since the Cleveland Indians started visually moving away from their preexisting logo, Chief Wahoo, following years of protest by Native American groups. Now, according to the New York Times, the MLB franchise is reportedly set to drop their team name entirely, and adopt a new one that doesn’t carry with it the negative connotations that come with using Native American imagery and stereotypes in professional sports.
According to the Times, the baseball team’s new name announcement might arrive as early as this week, though the paper had no information about what that new moniker might be; one source claimed the move to a new name would likely not take full effect until 2022, due to a potentially lengthy rebranding process.
The news comes almost exactly five months after the Washington Redskins decided to change their own team name, after the NFL franchise argued for years that the nickname was intended as praise for, not an slur against, Native Americans. As of today, Washington still hasn’t selected a new team title, and is currently called the Washington Football Team.
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As for what the Cleveland Indians might name themselves, well, the sky’s the limit, but fans have looked to the team’s early nicknames for inspiration. Prior to 1915, the franchise that would become the Cleveland Indians was called the Cleveland Broncos, the Cleveland Bluebirds, and the Cleveland Lake Shores, among others.
What name are we rooting for? Why, the one used by Cleveland’s early American Association team, which existed from 1887 to 1899. It had a name that could strike fear into the hearts of any opposing team, and look cool as hell on a T-shirt: the Cleveland Spiders.
By Halle Kiefer@hallekiefer
José Ramírez hits a double during the Cleveland Indians’ September 29th game against the New York Yankees. Photo: Joe Sargent/MLB Photos via Getty Images
It’s only been a minute since the Cleveland Indians started visually moving away from their preexisting logo, Chief Wahoo, following years of protest by Native American groups. Now, according to the New York Times, the MLB franchise is reportedly set to drop their team name entirely, and adopt a new one that doesn’t carry with it the negative connotations that come with using Native American imagery and stereotypes in professional sports.
According to the Times, the baseball team’s new name announcement might arrive as early as this week, though the paper had no information about what that new moniker might be; one source claimed the move to a new name would likely not take full effect until 2022, due to a potentially lengthy rebranding process.
The news comes almost exactly five months after the Washington Redskins decided to change their own team name, after the NFL franchise argued for years that the nickname was intended as praise for, not an slur against, Native Americans. As of today, Washington still hasn’t selected a new team title, and is currently called the Washington Football Team.
60% Off Gift Subscriptions
GIVE NEW YORK
As for what the Cleveland Indians might name themselves, well, the sky’s the limit, but fans have looked to the team’s early nicknames for inspiration. Prior to 1915, the franchise that would become the Cleveland Indians was called the Cleveland Broncos, the Cleveland Bluebirds, and the Cleveland Lake Shores, among others.
What name are we rooting for? Why, the one used by Cleveland’s early American Association team, which existed from 1887 to 1899. It had a name that could strike fear into the hearts of any opposing team, and look cool as hell on a T-shirt: the Cleveland Spiders.
i know i'm a little late to this conversation, but why are black people fighting someone's else battles again? if the native peoples have an issue with this situation, then they should be putting themselves on the line. we have our own problems in american sports. personally i think bomani is involved just to piss off white folks.
Black folks should stand for what is right, and speak towards justice. Native folks don't need us to fight for them, just be with them. It's not that difficult to see a caricature in red, and call foul on it.
so-called black folks are the native americans, not those $5 Indians.time to change all of these lies and narratives.
Are y'all watching Mike & Mike? Bomani Jones has on a t shirt resembling the Cleveland Indians, but it says Caucasians. I'm surprised ESPN let him on the air with it. Might have to buy one myself
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That's What She Said with Sarah Spain - You Get The Show - One Last LAF | ESPN
Sarah - aka The Commish - welcomes recurring guests from the "Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz" and the "Le Batard And Friends" podcast network to share their favorite stories and memories of Dan, Stu and the Shipping Container as the guys get ready to leave ESPN.
Dan Le Batard’s New Media Startup Will Reportedly Target Jemele Hill And Bomani Jones
ROBBY KALLANDTWITTERSENIOR SPORTS WRITER
JANUARY 12, 2021
uproxx.com
Dan Le Batard has ventured off on his own after two decades at ESPN, as the longtime columnist, radio host, and TV personality parted ways with the four-letter on January 4 with an emotional goodbye on Highly Questionable.
In the week-plus since, Le Batard’s radio show has been doing a “pirate” broadcast now that it is independent and while there was ample speculation about where the wildly popular show would land, the answer we got over the weekend was that Le Batard and former ESPN chief John Skipper would be teaming up to launch a new media company. While we don’t know specifics on a launch date for the new outlet or even a name, we do have some details on who they will be targeting to bring on board.
According to Front Office Sports, they are going after a number of Le Batard’s former ESPN colleagues, including Jemele Hill (who confirmed discussions in the story), Bomani Jones, Kate Fagan, and Erik Rydholm — the producer and creator of Highly Questionable, PTI, and much of ESPN’s afternoon block.
In any case, the Le Batard and Skipper company clearly has a vision for the type of personality they want to bring on board and see themselves as capable of landing some very big fish — which also indicates they will have ample funding behind them.
ROBBY KALLANDTWITTERSENIOR SPORTS WRITER
JANUARY 12, 2021
Dan Le Batard’s Media Startup Will Target Jemele Hill And Bomani Jones
Dan Le Batard reportedly has his eye on some of his favorite former ESPN colleagues to bring onto his new media startup.
uproxx.com
Dan Le Batard has ventured off on his own after two decades at ESPN, as the longtime columnist, radio host, and TV personality parted ways with the four-letter on January 4 with an emotional goodbye on Highly Questionable.
In the week-plus since, Le Batard’s radio show has been doing a “pirate” broadcast now that it is independent and while there was ample speculation about where the wildly popular show would land, the answer we got over the weekend was that Le Batard and former ESPN chief John Skipper would be teaming up to launch a new media company. While we don’t know specifics on a launch date for the new outlet or even a name, we do have some details on who they will be targeting to bring on board.
According to Front Office Sports, they are going after a number of Le Batard’s former ESPN colleagues, including Jemele Hill (who confirmed discussions in the story), Bomani Jones, Kate Fagan, and Erik Rydholm — the producer and creator of Highly Questionable, PTI, and much of ESPN’s afternoon block.
Hill has a number of projects she is working on, like her Vice show Stick To Sports with Cari Champion as well as a Spotify podcast, so it seems the biggest hurdle is figuring out exactly what her role would be and how involved she is. Jones is still under contract with ESPN, having taken over Highly Questionable in Le Batard’s absence among other responsibilities, so swiping him away would be quite the task.
In any case, the Le Batard and Skipper company clearly has a vision for the type of personality they want to bring on board and see themselves as capable of landing some very big fish — which also indicates they will have ample funding behind them.
John Skipper, Dan Le Batard's Progressive Response To 'Outkick'
John Skipper and Dan Le Batard are talking to Jemele Hill about a liberal sports startup that would be opposite of Clay Travis' Outkick.
frontofficesports.com
John Skipper, Dan Le Batard’s Progressive Response To ‘Outkick’
- Jemele Hill confirms early discussions with the new startup.
- New outlet would be philosophical opposite of Clay Travis’ site.
- BY MICHAEL MCCARTHY
JANUARY 12, 2021
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Former ESPN president John Skipper and personality Dan Le Batard are partnering on a politically progressive sports media company. The new venture is described as the strategic opposite of Clay Travis’ Outkick, sources told Front Office Sports.
Skipper and Le Batard will build a diverse lineup of progressive sports voices, said sources. Their target list includes former ESPN colleagues Jemele Hill, Bomani Jones and Kate Fagan.
Their still-unnamed startup has begun to seek sports talent in front of and behind the camera, said sources. Their strategy: sell various types of original content, from TV, radio and streaming sports shows to films and documentaries.
Hill confirmed she’s had early discussions with Skipper.
“We’re trying to figure out the most productive way to work together,” she told Front Office Sports. “Both John and Dan know I have such a deep level of respect for them. So me working with them again always felt like it was inevitable.”
Skipper, the executive chairman of sports streaming company DAZN, also wants to hire a “content creator” he trusts from his six-year stint as president of ESPN from 2012-2017.
Among possible executives on his wish list are three longtime colleagues: Erik Rydholm, who executive produced Le Batard’s “Highly Questionable” TV show at ESPN; Connor Schell, the former content chief who resigned to form his own production company; and DAZN executive vice president of content Jamie Horowitz, who launched DAZN’s “40 Days” documentary franchise after creating “SportsNation” and “First Take.”
A DAZN spokesman said Skipper was not available for comment.
Q&A: Jemele Hill Opens Up on Bubba Wallace, NFL Protests, and ESPN
BY MICHAEL MCCARTHY / JUNE 26, 2020
Skipper and Le Batard’s new content outfit faces plenty of hurdles. First, they’ll need financing. Their standard of personalities and executive talent won’t come cheap.
Some candidates on their wish list like Jones, host of “The Right Time” podcast, are still under contract with ESPN.
Hill, whom ESPN suspended in 2017 after calling President Donald Trump a “white supremacist,” has formed her own independent media platform after leaving the sports giant.
Her projects include “Stick to Sports,” the Vice TV talk show with Cari Champion, the “Jemele Hill is Unbothered” Spotify podcast, a production company, and a regular column in The Atlantic.
The media veterans are tapping into a culturally, politically progressive avenue at a perfect time. The country is one week removed from the U.S. Capitol riots and one week away from Joe Biden’s inauguration and Democratic control of the Congress.
Jimmy Pitaro, Skipper’s successor as ESPN president, had directed his talent to steer clear of pure politics unless it directly intersects with sports such as player protests over the death of George Floyd.
Le Batard, whose parents are Cuban immigrants, called ESPN “cowardly” in 2019 for not addressing Trump’s racist remarks about four Democratic congresswomen of color at a political rally.
Dan Le Batard Leaving ESPN; Asked Out Of Contract Early
BY MICHAEL MCCARTHY / DECEMBER 3, 2020
“Here, all of a sudden, nobody talks politics on anything unless we can use one of these sports figures as a meat shield in the most cowardly possible way to discuss the subject,” Le Batard had said on his show, adding that Hill’s public battle with Trump made ESPN afraid to tackle racial and social justices issues.
After signing off from ESPN on Jan. 4, Le Batard recently called Travis a “shit-stain” for hosting Trump on his radio show multiple times.
Even if they don’t reach an agreement on her involvement, Hill has “no doubt” Skipper and Le Batard will be successful in their new venture.
“John and Dan could fill a huge hole in the marketplace in terms of more content. Yes, of course, ESPN has a lot of it. But as streaming continues to grow and develop, this is still an untouched area for them,” she said. “So there’s a lot of opportunity out there.”
Travis tweeted he welcomes anyone who wants to start their own media business.
“Yay, capitalism. But this will just make [Outkick] even more successful because it pushes the rest of the sports media industry even farther left. It’s a woke knife fight to see who is the purest.”
If the Skipper/Le Batard startup gets off the ground, it should have its pick of available talent. Thousands of writers, editors, producers, directors, announcers and analysts have been thrown out of work by COVID-19-caused layoffs in the media business.
At the start of 2021, sports media free agents include ex-ESPNers such as Mike Golic Sr., Josina Anderson, Trey Wingo and Michelle Beadle. If Skipper and Le Batard hit it big, one hope is their independent company could one day sell for something close to the $200 million pocketed by ex-ESPN colleague Bill Simmons for The Ringer.
The Miami Herald first reported on Skipper and Le Batard’s plan to partner on a new venture.
Bomani Jones thrives where race and sports collide. Can he be a star at ESPN?
ESPN's Bomani Jones poses in Harlem. (Jesse Dittmar for The Washington Post)
By
Ben Strauss
Jan. 25, 2021 at 9:00 a.m. EST
“What do you think,” Bomani Jones was asking, “is the biggest impediment to race relations in America?”
It was a heavy question for a caller to pose on afternoon sports talk radio. But this was last summer, amid the tension of a national reckoning around racism, and a noose had been found in the stall of Black NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace. Originally called a hate crime by NASCAR, the FBI had determined the rope was not malicious.
The show’s host, Will Cain, who has since left for Fox News, had declared the episode a setback to race relations in the United States. That got the attention of Jones, who called into his colleague’s show and asked his question.
Cain answered: tribalism. Jones pressed on.
“If I were to ask you [the same question] in 1865 ... would you have said the whole thing about tribalism?” he asked.
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“Yes, at a deeper philosophical level,” Cain replied. “But the more immediate biggest impediment at that point would have been the institution of slavery.”
But this, Jones explained, was a fundamental misunderstanding of racism.
“The issue is ... White people not treating Black people as being of equal levels of humanity,” Jones said. “The problem I have is when you say that what happened with Bubba Wallace is going to be an impediment to race relations — nah, man. Those people rolling on Speedway Boulevard before that race with those [Confederate] flags flying, those are an impediment to race relations.”
As protests gripped the country, commentators across the media were trying to explain them in the context of American history. Few did that more ably, in this moment and others, than Jones, across ESPN, on CNN and in a story about amateurism for Vanity Fair edited by author Ta-Nehisi Coates.
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It didn’t go unnoticed. He received calls from ESPN President Jimmy Pitaro and other executives thanking him for his work — a stark departure from earlier in 2020, when his future at ESPN appeared in question. His afternoon TV show was canceled. Two friends and fellow prominent Black voices, Jemele Hill and Michael Smith, had left ESPN after becoming targets of its conservative critics, including President Donald Trump, and as the network rededicated itself to being apolitical.
But now protests were forcing the network to confront racism. And the conversation with Cain, Jones thought, proved both his value to the network and its value to him. “That got around, and it was on a topic that I think had some importance,” he said. “And me having that exchange with him on ESPN gave it a visibility. That probably doesn’t happen if it’s on a different platform, on a different network.”
Seven months later, though, Jones finds himself wondering again about his place in a company undergoing seismic changes to its business model. ESPN has staked its future on live sports, and its programming decisions reflect that. After years of the proliferation of debate shows, there is more “SportsCenter” on ESPN these days; gambling content is ascendant; former athletes are in more demand on TV than journalists.
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There have been more high-profile exits, too, including another outspoken friend of Jones’s, radio and TV host Dan Le Batard. ESPN announced 300 layoffs in November, the largest round in the company’s history, amid shrinking cable fees and a pandemic. And in a post-Trump world, it’s easy to envision the entire sports industry preaching the bridge-building, kumbaya potential of sports.
Today, Jones appears on a handful of ESPN shows, but all he’s anchored to, for now, is a podcast.
“I don’t know — for this entire industry, not just ESPN,” Jones said in an interview. “I don’t know what the paradigm is going to be for guys on television talking about sports if you’re not Stephen A. Smith.”
A fresh voice
Dressed in a gray T-shirt and black track pants, Jones was strolling through Harlem, where he lives, past closed restaurants and people shedding layers on an unseasonably warm afternoon. He hasn’t left his house much since the coronavirus arrived. “I’ve been diligent on this covid s---,” he said.
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Jones was born in Atlanta and grew up in Houston, where his parents were professors at Prairie View A&M. Both were active in the civil rights movement. Jones learned his love of sports from his father, mostly watching Braves games, though his fandom lapsed after an iteration of the team preached the sanctity of playing the game “the right way” — often code for the “White way.” “It was everything I don’t stand for,” he said.
Jones earned a master’s degree in politics, economics and business from Claremont but flunked out of a doctoral program and pivoted to writing. One of his first pieces was for ESPN’s Page 2 in 2004, about the racist undertones of a saga involving a top high school football recruit accused of statutory rape. He hosted a local radio show in North Carolina and then one for Sirius before earning a regular gig on ESPN’s debate show “Around the Horn.”
In 2013, he was hired full-time at ESPN as a co-host of “Highly Questionable,” alongside Le Batard, and he later hosted a national radio show for ESPN. He earned a reputation for his commentary on how race intersects with sports.
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Coates recalled watching Jones on ESPN and marveling at how fast he spoke. “My prejudice is to overlook people who talk fast, but you listen to him and there’s actually brilliance behind it,” Coates said. “The world is waiting for you to catch up to Bomani.”
His commentary about Colin Kaepernick was particularly valuable, Coates said, after the quarterback was criticized for settling his collusion case with the NFL. “Bomani was sympathetic not just to Kaepernick’s protest but to why he might not be acting like y’all think he should,” Coates said.
Bomani Jones works on the set of “High Noon,” the show he co-hosted with his friend Pablo Torre. (Joe Faraoni/ESPN Images)
Jones’s biggest break was supposed to be “High Noon,” a talk show he co-hosted with his friend Pablo Torre, which debuted in 2018. The two were paid more than $3 million combined per year for the show, according to a person familiar with their salaries, and Jones moved from Miami to New York. In addition to sports news of the day, “High Noon” tackled issues of race and politics, including whether top Black athletes should exclusively attend historically Black colleges.
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Over the life of the show, though, two things changed at ESPN. President John Skipper was replaced by Pitaro, who declared ESPN would extricate itself from the Trump-fueled culture wars and prioritize relationships with leagues such as the NFL. And cable subscribers continued to dwindle while the cost of sports rights continued to grow, increasing economic pressure on the network. “High Noon” became a luxury the network didn’t want to pay for.
After two years, ESPN canceled the show, publicly blaming its ratings, which were not great but also not disastrous. It was “a smart and nuanced show,” the company said at the time. “Unfortunately, not enough people agreed with us.”
The cancellation was difficult for Jones. He had viewed the show as a natural progression of his career — writer, radio host, TV star. But he believes he and Torre never exuded the same camaraderie of the hosts of the long-running “Pardon the Interruption,” Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon. “The show wasn’t canceled because of what we talked about,” Jones said. “I don’t think our friendship carried over to the screen.”
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After the cancellation, Jones re-signed with ESPN. No longer the host of a show, he took a pay cut.
Shifting winds
In the wake of George Floyd’s killing, as athletes, teams and leagues joined a national reckoning over racism, ESPN rushed to cover the protests. It showcased the work of the Undefeated, a vertical that covers race, and aired multiple specials dedicated to the topic. Inside the network, some employees felt a sense of whiplash. When Disney, ESPN’s parent company, announced it would partner with Kaepernick (and Hill) to create a series of shows, one ESPN staffer said, “It was like Voldemort and we could say his name again.”
Jones was suddenly in demand, too, getting more calls for TV appearances, and his impromptu debate with Cain won headlines around the Internet. On his podcast, which gained listeners over the summer, he led vital conversations about race. After NBA players engaged in a political strike over the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Wisconsin, Jones wondered aloud whether LeBron James, an older player with lucrative ties to corporate America, was the right person to lead the protest movement.
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He also led perhaps less vital but equally illustrative conversations, such as when he discussed the time years ago that Mike Tirico, a prominent sportscaster for NBC, said he wasn’t Black. (Tirico has since said he is mixed race.) Asked why the segment was important, Jones laughed.
“Because it’s hilarious!” he said. “For White people in America, race only comes up to them when you’re talking about something bad about somebody else. People get in conversation, they whisper, ‘He was Black.’ They lower their voice because they feel like they’re saying a bad word. Well, this ain’t a bad word to me.”
There were some at ESPN who felt stifled by Pitaro’s directive to keep political discussions off the network. Le Batard once questioned on the air why it was okay to talk about Trump and racism only if someone such as James talked about it first, which earned him a face-to-face meeting with Pitaro in New York.
Jones said he hasn’t felt restricted by ESPN’s guardrails. “Dan is a hell raiser, right?” he explained. “That’s not the role I think I play in the ecosystem.”
Still, by the fall, with sports back in full swing, Jones said the appreciation calls had dried up. “I don’t think that that moment ushered in some new revolution of what ESPN was doing as much as it’s going to prove to be a moment in time,” he said.
Jones is known for being a regular on ESPN’s “Around the Horn” and hosting the podcast “The Right Time with Bomani Jones.” (Jesse Dittmar for The Washington Post)
No place like ESPN
Walking toward Central Park, Jones looked around and said, “They ain’t gentrified Harlem just yet.” In the park, he settled on a rock formation, where he sat for an hour, talking about how ESPN’s future intersects with his own. “I used to host a TV show. Now I don’t host a TV show,” he said. “I ain’t the first person to be here. Stephen A. Smith has been in this position, before his return to the top.”
Smith signed a contract last year that pays him around $8 million per year, according to the New York Post. He’s the undisputed face of ESPN, his bombastic punditry ubiquitous across every ESPN platform.
Jones is confronting his future at a moment when making that leap to network tentpole is more important than ever. The biggest stars in sports media can command bigger and bigger salaries, like Smith or Skip Bayless of Fox Sports, or they can strike out on their own like Le Batard, who is launching his own media company, Meadowlark, with Skipper. Jones’s path is less clear. He has expressed interest in replacing Le Batard as full-time host of “Highly Questionable,” but ESPN opted to maintain a rotating cast of hosts, including Torre, for now. (Some inside ESPN wonder whether that time block is destined to eventually become another “SportsCenter,” anyway.)
What else there is, Jones isn’t sure. There could be a show on streaming service ESPN Plus — maybe something like Bill Maher does on HBO, with a monologue and a panel — but the content vision for the platform is unclear beyond live sports. He could also try to strike out on his own, possibly with Le Batard. Jones, who is under contract with ESPN until 2022, has been approached by Meadowlark, according to a person with knowledge of the situation, but it’s too early to know what he might do or make with the venture.
Michael Smith, who now co-hosts a show on NBC’s streaming service, said: “I’m not sure ESPN expressed the proper and deserved amount of value to him. He’s singular. There’s no one better at sports commentary on that network or anywhere else.”
ESPN has its own calculations to make about the purpose of its daytime lineup. Is the goal to drive ad revenue or to funnel viewers to the live sports that air most nights? Or is the goal to make league partners happy in service of current and future rights deals? ESPN airs a daily afternoon NBA show that often doesn’t rate as well as “SportsCenter.” But regardless of how many people watch it, it buys goodwill with the NBA, which ESPN pays billions to broadcast its games.
All of these questions are more acute with cable revenue still shrinking. As one former ESPN executive put it: “If you’re not on ‘SportsCenter,’ [morning show] ‘First Take’ or ‘PTI,’ you don’t have any job security at ESPN.”
Pitaro, in an interview, said he valued Jones. He recalled attending a Super Bowl with some friends a few years ago, when he was a Disney executive. At a pregame party, Pitaro’s friends only wanted to talk to Jones. “I remember thinking then there was more we could do with Bomani,” he said. “ ’High Noon’ didn’t work, and I’m sad about that. With his versatility, I think his future is bright here.”
Jones hopes that’s true. “ESPN is still the number one place in the game to be if what you want to do is talk about sports,” he said. But he also knows the industry is changing, even faster than he thought it would. A few years ago, he had dinner with Torre and told him there were only one or two contracts left for them at the money they were making, doing the jobs they were doing.
“No matter what happens, there’s always going to be somebody like ‘The Wire’ was for HBO,” he said. “ ‘The Wire’ didn’t get great ratings, but they wanted to say they had ‘The Wire.’ It looked good on the masthead. ESPN’s going to have people like that. I just don’t know who they are.”
ESPN's Bomani Jones poses in Harlem. (Jesse Dittmar for The Washington Post)
By
Ben Strauss
Jan. 25, 2021 at 9:00 a.m. EST
“What do you think,” Bomani Jones was asking, “is the biggest impediment to race relations in America?”
It was a heavy question for a caller to pose on afternoon sports talk radio. But this was last summer, amid the tension of a national reckoning around racism, and a noose had been found in the stall of Black NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace. Originally called a hate crime by NASCAR, the FBI had determined the rope was not malicious.
The show’s host, Will Cain, who has since left for Fox News, had declared the episode a setback to race relations in the United States. That got the attention of Jones, who called into his colleague’s show and asked his question.
Cain answered: tribalism. Jones pressed on.
“If I were to ask you [the same question] in 1865 ... would you have said the whole thing about tribalism?” he asked.
AD
“Yes, at a deeper philosophical level,” Cain replied. “But the more immediate biggest impediment at that point would have been the institution of slavery.”
But this, Jones explained, was a fundamental misunderstanding of racism.
“The issue is ... White people not treating Black people as being of equal levels of humanity,” Jones said. “The problem I have is when you say that what happened with Bubba Wallace is going to be an impediment to race relations — nah, man. Those people rolling on Speedway Boulevard before that race with those [Confederate] flags flying, those are an impediment to race relations.”
As protests gripped the country, commentators across the media were trying to explain them in the context of American history. Few did that more ably, in this moment and others, than Jones, across ESPN, on CNN and in a story about amateurism for Vanity Fair edited by author Ta-Nehisi Coates.
AD
It didn’t go unnoticed. He received calls from ESPN President Jimmy Pitaro and other executives thanking him for his work — a stark departure from earlier in 2020, when his future at ESPN appeared in question. His afternoon TV show was canceled. Two friends and fellow prominent Black voices, Jemele Hill and Michael Smith, had left ESPN after becoming targets of its conservative critics, including President Donald Trump, and as the network rededicated itself to being apolitical.
But now protests were forcing the network to confront racism. And the conversation with Cain, Jones thought, proved both his value to the network and its value to him. “That got around, and it was on a topic that I think had some importance,” he said. “And me having that exchange with him on ESPN gave it a visibility. That probably doesn’t happen if it’s on a different platform, on a different network.”
Seven months later, though, Jones finds himself wondering again about his place in a company undergoing seismic changes to its business model. ESPN has staked its future on live sports, and its programming decisions reflect that. After years of the proliferation of debate shows, there is more “SportsCenter” on ESPN these days; gambling content is ascendant; former athletes are in more demand on TV than journalists.
AD
There have been more high-profile exits, too, including another outspoken friend of Jones’s, radio and TV host Dan Le Batard. ESPN announced 300 layoffs in November, the largest round in the company’s history, amid shrinking cable fees and a pandemic. And in a post-Trump world, it’s easy to envision the entire sports industry preaching the bridge-building, kumbaya potential of sports.
Today, Jones appears on a handful of ESPN shows, but all he’s anchored to, for now, is a podcast.
“I don’t know — for this entire industry, not just ESPN,” Jones said in an interview. “I don’t know what the paradigm is going to be for guys on television talking about sports if you’re not Stephen A. Smith.”
A fresh voice
Dressed in a gray T-shirt and black track pants, Jones was strolling through Harlem, where he lives, past closed restaurants and people shedding layers on an unseasonably warm afternoon. He hasn’t left his house much since the coronavirus arrived. “I’ve been diligent on this covid s---,” he said.
AD
Jones was born in Atlanta and grew up in Houston, where his parents were professors at Prairie View A&M. Both were active in the civil rights movement. Jones learned his love of sports from his father, mostly watching Braves games, though his fandom lapsed after an iteration of the team preached the sanctity of playing the game “the right way” — often code for the “White way.” “It was everything I don’t stand for,” he said.
Jones earned a master’s degree in politics, economics and business from Claremont but flunked out of a doctoral program and pivoted to writing. One of his first pieces was for ESPN’s Page 2 in 2004, about the racist undertones of a saga involving a top high school football recruit accused of statutory rape. He hosted a local radio show in North Carolina and then one for Sirius before earning a regular gig on ESPN’s debate show “Around the Horn.”
In 2013, he was hired full-time at ESPN as a co-host of “Highly Questionable,” alongside Le Batard, and he later hosted a national radio show for ESPN. He earned a reputation for his commentary on how race intersects with sports.
AD
Coates recalled watching Jones on ESPN and marveling at how fast he spoke. “My prejudice is to overlook people who talk fast, but you listen to him and there’s actually brilliance behind it,” Coates said. “The world is waiting for you to catch up to Bomani.”
His commentary about Colin Kaepernick was particularly valuable, Coates said, after the quarterback was criticized for settling his collusion case with the NFL. “Bomani was sympathetic not just to Kaepernick’s protest but to why he might not be acting like y’all think he should,” Coates said.
Bomani Jones works on the set of “High Noon,” the show he co-hosted with his friend Pablo Torre. (Joe Faraoni/ESPN Images)
Jones’s biggest break was supposed to be “High Noon,” a talk show he co-hosted with his friend Pablo Torre, which debuted in 2018. The two were paid more than $3 million combined per year for the show, according to a person familiar with their salaries, and Jones moved from Miami to New York. In addition to sports news of the day, “High Noon” tackled issues of race and politics, including whether top Black athletes should exclusively attend historically Black colleges.
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Over the life of the show, though, two things changed at ESPN. President John Skipper was replaced by Pitaro, who declared ESPN would extricate itself from the Trump-fueled culture wars and prioritize relationships with leagues such as the NFL. And cable subscribers continued to dwindle while the cost of sports rights continued to grow, increasing economic pressure on the network. “High Noon” became a luxury the network didn’t want to pay for.
After two years, ESPN canceled the show, publicly blaming its ratings, which were not great but also not disastrous. It was “a smart and nuanced show,” the company said at the time. “Unfortunately, not enough people agreed with us.”
The cancellation was difficult for Jones. He had viewed the show as a natural progression of his career — writer, radio host, TV star. But he believes he and Torre never exuded the same camaraderie of the hosts of the long-running “Pardon the Interruption,” Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon. “The show wasn’t canceled because of what we talked about,” Jones said. “I don’t think our friendship carried over to the screen.”
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After the cancellation, Jones re-signed with ESPN. No longer the host of a show, he took a pay cut.
Shifting winds
In the wake of George Floyd’s killing, as athletes, teams and leagues joined a national reckoning over racism, ESPN rushed to cover the protests. It showcased the work of the Undefeated, a vertical that covers race, and aired multiple specials dedicated to the topic. Inside the network, some employees felt a sense of whiplash. When Disney, ESPN’s parent company, announced it would partner with Kaepernick (and Hill) to create a series of shows, one ESPN staffer said, “It was like Voldemort and we could say his name again.”
Jones was suddenly in demand, too, getting more calls for TV appearances, and his impromptu debate with Cain won headlines around the Internet. On his podcast, which gained listeners over the summer, he led vital conversations about race. After NBA players engaged in a political strike over the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Wisconsin, Jones wondered aloud whether LeBron James, an older player with lucrative ties to corporate America, was the right person to lead the protest movement.
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He also led perhaps less vital but equally illustrative conversations, such as when he discussed the time years ago that Mike Tirico, a prominent sportscaster for NBC, said he wasn’t Black. (Tirico has since said he is mixed race.) Asked why the segment was important, Jones laughed.
“Because it’s hilarious!” he said. “For White people in America, race only comes up to them when you’re talking about something bad about somebody else. People get in conversation, they whisper, ‘He was Black.’ They lower their voice because they feel like they’re saying a bad word. Well, this ain’t a bad word to me.”
There were some at ESPN who felt stifled by Pitaro’s directive to keep political discussions off the network. Le Batard once questioned on the air why it was okay to talk about Trump and racism only if someone such as James talked about it first, which earned him a face-to-face meeting with Pitaro in New York.
Jones said he hasn’t felt restricted by ESPN’s guardrails. “Dan is a hell raiser, right?” he explained. “That’s not the role I think I play in the ecosystem.”
Still, by the fall, with sports back in full swing, Jones said the appreciation calls had dried up. “I don’t think that that moment ushered in some new revolution of what ESPN was doing as much as it’s going to prove to be a moment in time,” he said.
Jones is known for being a regular on ESPN’s “Around the Horn” and hosting the podcast “The Right Time with Bomani Jones.” (Jesse Dittmar for The Washington Post)
No place like ESPN
Walking toward Central Park, Jones looked around and said, “They ain’t gentrified Harlem just yet.” In the park, he settled on a rock formation, where he sat for an hour, talking about how ESPN’s future intersects with his own. “I used to host a TV show. Now I don’t host a TV show,” he said. “I ain’t the first person to be here. Stephen A. Smith has been in this position, before his return to the top.”
Smith signed a contract last year that pays him around $8 million per year, according to the New York Post. He’s the undisputed face of ESPN, his bombastic punditry ubiquitous across every ESPN platform.
Jones is confronting his future at a moment when making that leap to network tentpole is more important than ever. The biggest stars in sports media can command bigger and bigger salaries, like Smith or Skip Bayless of Fox Sports, or they can strike out on their own like Le Batard, who is launching his own media company, Meadowlark, with Skipper. Jones’s path is less clear. He has expressed interest in replacing Le Batard as full-time host of “Highly Questionable,” but ESPN opted to maintain a rotating cast of hosts, including Torre, for now. (Some inside ESPN wonder whether that time block is destined to eventually become another “SportsCenter,” anyway.)
What else there is, Jones isn’t sure. There could be a show on streaming service ESPN Plus — maybe something like Bill Maher does on HBO, with a monologue and a panel — but the content vision for the platform is unclear beyond live sports. He could also try to strike out on his own, possibly with Le Batard. Jones, who is under contract with ESPN until 2022, has been approached by Meadowlark, according to a person with knowledge of the situation, but it’s too early to know what he might do or make with the venture.
Michael Smith, who now co-hosts a show on NBC’s streaming service, said: “I’m not sure ESPN expressed the proper and deserved amount of value to him. He’s singular. There’s no one better at sports commentary on that network or anywhere else.”
ESPN has its own calculations to make about the purpose of its daytime lineup. Is the goal to drive ad revenue or to funnel viewers to the live sports that air most nights? Or is the goal to make league partners happy in service of current and future rights deals? ESPN airs a daily afternoon NBA show that often doesn’t rate as well as “SportsCenter.” But regardless of how many people watch it, it buys goodwill with the NBA, which ESPN pays billions to broadcast its games.
All of these questions are more acute with cable revenue still shrinking. As one former ESPN executive put it: “If you’re not on ‘SportsCenter,’ [morning show] ‘First Take’ or ‘PTI,’ you don’t have any job security at ESPN.”
Pitaro, in an interview, said he valued Jones. He recalled attending a Super Bowl with some friends a few years ago, when he was a Disney executive. At a pregame party, Pitaro’s friends only wanted to talk to Jones. “I remember thinking then there was more we could do with Bomani,” he said. “ ’High Noon’ didn’t work, and I’m sad about that. With his versatility, I think his future is bright here.”
Jones hopes that’s true. “ESPN is still the number one place in the game to be if what you want to do is talk about sports,” he said. But he also knows the industry is changing, even faster than he thought it would. A few years ago, he had dinner with Torre and told him there were only one or two contracts left for them at the money they were making, doing the jobs they were doing.
“No matter what happens, there’s always going to be somebody like ‘The Wire’ was for HBO,” he said. “ ‘The Wire’ didn’t get great ratings, but they wanted to say they had ‘The Wire.’ It looked good on the masthead. ESPN’s going to have people like that. I just don’t know who they are.”
The Right Time with Bomani Jones Show - PodCenter - ESPN Radio
Bomani Jones weighs in on sports, pop culture, social topics and more, with your comments on Mondays, friends of the show on Wednesdays and Domonique Foxw
The Right Time with Bomani Jones - Credit Where Credit's Due | ESPN
Bomani Jones discusses the winners of Championship Sunday in the NFL, Kansas City and Tampa Bay (1:13). He dishes on the individual performances of Tom Brady and Patrick Mahomes and whether or not the forthcoming Super Bowl amounts to the “greatest” matchup of quarterbacks in history, as well as...
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BOMANI JONES PRAISES SOCIAL JUSTICE EFFORTS, DISMISSES HIRING PRACTICES ON INSIDE THE NFL
“It hasn’t been out front as some people would like, but I think the number one goal in this is the product. Whatever you do can’t interfere with the football that is being watched.”
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By Ricky Keeler / February 3, 2021
The 2020-21 NFL season will go down as one of the craziest seasons in recent memory, but in some eyes, it will go down as a meaningful season in terms of what the league stood for over the last year in the fight for social justice and trying to play the game amidst a pandemic.
On Tuesday night’s episode of Inside The NFL that looked ahead to Super Bowl LV this Sunday, ESPN’s Bomani Jones was a guest with James Brown, Phil Simms, and Ray Lewis to talk about how the NFL has addressed social injustice, the Rooney Rule, and the impact COVID-19 has had on the NFL.
After a montage of clips looking back at the season that was from NFL Films, Brown first asked Jones, who he called one of the “most knowledgeable and distinguishable voices in sports broadcasting” about how significant it was the NFL has expressed their concern about social injustice. Jones said it is a message still going in the NFL compared to other sports.
“When you think about it, the NBA got out of the bubble and you don’t have Black Lives Matter on the floor anymore, you don’t have the things on the back of the jerseys. Right now, in sports, the NFL is carrying that messaging in a way that nobody really has been in professional sports. It hasn’t been out front as some people would like, but I think the number one goal in this is the product. Whatever you do can’t interfere with the football that is being watched.”
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Bomani Jones wonders if he's still a fit at ESPN
Amid a changing landscape at ESPN, Bomani Jones wonders if there's a place for thoughtful, insightful commentators like him.
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Bomani Jones wonders if he’s still a fit at ESPN
ESPNBy Ian Casselberry on 01/26/2021
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Does Bomani Jones have a future at ESPN?
In light of layoffs and departures from the network — the most notable being Dan Le Batard’s recent exit — the commentator and host is wondering if he’s still a fit when personalities are phased out for more SportsCenter, more athletes are hired for on-air roles, and a bombastic, hot take approach is being favored over insightful discussion and analysis.
“I don’t know what the paradigm is going to be for guys on television talking about sports if you’re not Stephen A. Smith,” Jones told the
Less than three years ago, Jones’s star appeared to be on the rise at ESPN. Following a co-hosting stint on Highly Questionable and a national show on ESPN Radio, Jones scored a showcase with High Noon, a talk show with Pablo Torre that seemingly put the two in position for future stardom. Tony Kornheiser predicted that Jones and Torre would eventually take over Pardon the Interruption from him and Michael Wilbon, and High Noon appeared to be an ideal warm-up for that.
Unfortunately, the show was canceled after less than two years on the air. Format shifts and timeslot changes made it difficult for High Noon to find an audience, though viewers didn’t respond to the show either. For that, Jones blames himself and Torre, telling Strauss that their friendship didn’t translate into on-air chemistry, something with which Kornheiser and Wilbon thrived.
Jones and Torre are still at ESPN, having signed new contracts after High Noon‘s cancellation. Yet while both are still featured on TV and online with appearances on Highly Questionable and Around the Horn, Torre’s place at the network appears to have solidified with his role as host of the ESPN Daily podcast. That show provides the longform content and in-depth analysis previously seen with Outside the Lines, often with a lighter, more fun sensibility.
However, Jones hasn’t found that foothold, that signature platform.
Strauss reports that Jones wanted to take over as Highly Questionable host, but ESPN executives opted for a rotating cast. (And without Le Batard, the future of the show, especially in a midday timeslot, is uncertain anyway.) A show on ESPN+ is another possibility, but viewers may only look for live sports on the streaming platform.
Jones is reportedly a personality that Le Batard and John Skipper have targeted for their new content venture, Meadowlark Media. But with the company still trying to figure out exactly what it will be and who fits, Jones will likely wait. He’s still under contract with ESPN into 2022.
Whether or not Jones stays with ESPN and finds the ideal role will also say a lot about what the network wants to be in years to come. Does ESPN want to be a place that features substantive commentators like Jones, even if they’re not stars, or is the preference to push personalities that can possibly break into the mainstream, as Smith has?
For what it’s worth, ESPN president Jimmy Pitaro told Strauss that Jones’s “future was bright” at the network. If that’s true, executives and producers will have to follow through and find a showcase for him.
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