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Has Paul Finebaum been benched by ESPN after talking to Clay Travis of OutKick—and floating a run for the U.S. Senate? That depends on who you believe. And if you separate the flagship ESPN network from ESPN Radio and SEC Network, which has been controlled by the four letters since its debut in 2014.
A frequent ESPN critic, Travis got the ball rolling Monday by writing on X/Twitter: “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.”
But Bill Hofheimer, a top ESPN communications official, responded to Travis with a tweet of his own reading: “This is not true at all. The below is TOTALLY FALSE.”
Travis responded to Hofheimer, writing, “Why wasn’t @finebaum on Sunday AM SportsCenter yesterday? Or First Take this morning? For the first time in over a decade? Reacting to one of the biggest college football weekends of the year? I stand by my sources.”
Another source familiar with the situation told Front Office Sports that the host has been pulled from his regular studio appearances on the main ESPN network since doing the interview with Travis last week. Finebaum has continued to host his eponymous weekday show on ESPN Radio, which is simulcast on SEC Network, and appeared on the Saturday studio show on SEC Network. ESPN declined to comment beyond Hofheimer’s initial tweet denying Travis’s report.
Finebaum returned to ESPN’s airwaves Tuesday, appearing on Get Up and First Take.
Finebaum did not address the controversy during the first hour of his four-hour daily show Monday, and one caller’s line quickly disconnected while attempting to ask about it.
So what’s the bottom line here? There could be several factors driving the action behind the scenes.
First, with the exception of Stephen A. Smith, ESPN wants its personalities to steer clear of the third rail of politics. Finebaum not only floated a run for political office, but he also claimed that ESPN nixed his request to interview President Donald Trump during Trump’s first term in office in 2019.
“I called my boss, and they killed it. … I was devastated. They told me that we’re not allowed to mix politics with football,” Finebaum told Travis, referring to his bosses at ESPN.
Possibly yanking the 70-year-old Finebaum from his high-profile hits on the flagship channel could be a way for Bristol to signal it’s not happy he’s decided to join the culture wars, especially after a momentous Week 6 in college football, which witnessed the stunning upsets of Penn State by UCLA and Texas by Florida.
Second, if Finebaum is serious about a political run in Republican-dominated Alabama, what better way to soft-launch his campaign than publicly challenging ESPN and parent company Disney? Both are frequent targets for activists in Trump’s MAGA movement—as well as for former ESPNers like Sage Steele and Sam Ponder.
Federal election records do not show any candidate donations from Finebaum. His donation history could be an issue, as the Alabama Republican party bars candidates who have donated to Democrats running for office in the last six years, something that became a problem for former Auburn basketball coach Bruce Pearl as he considered a Senate run earlier this year.
Third, this could be a shot across the bow by ESPN at the “Voice of the SEC” not to cozy up to Travis’s OutKick—in which case, this could be a temporary kerfuffle. Finebaum signed a new deal with ESPN in August 2024. So it’s likely he’s still under contract for the near term.
Finebaum’s 12-year relationship with ESPN appears to be on increasingly thin ice. Although he didn’t personally know him, Finebaum said he was deeply moved by the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Will the Mouth of the South make the move from TV to politics à la Trump, former star of NBC’s The Apprentice? We’ll see.
—Margaret Fleming contributed reporting.
