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.

The man left bloodied by a weekend altercation involving Fox Sports broadcaster Mark Sanchez has sued the former NFL quarterback and Fox Corp. in Indianapolis state court, saying Sanchez instigated the incident.

The Monday lawsuit from Perry Tole, 69, makes claims of assault and battery against Sanchez, and of negligent hiring, retention, and supervision against Fox. It seeks an unspecified amount of damages to be determined at trial, plus attorney’s fees and other relief as deemed just by the court.

The high-profile incident originally prompted misdemeanor charges of battery resulting in injury, public intoxication, and unlawful entry of a motor vehicle, but on Monday Marion County prosecutor Ryan Mears added a new allegation of a felony charge of battery resulting in serious bodily injury. Sanchez was arrested while in the hospital for “battery with injury, unlawful entry of a motor vehicle and public intoxication, all of which are misdemeanors,” the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department announced Saturday afternoon.

Although the fight ended with Sanchez getting stabbed and sent to the hospital, descriptions of the incident—from both prosecutors and Tole’s lawsuit—paint a picture of Sanchez being the original aggressor. According to the complaint, Tole was parked in an alley between the Marriott and Westin hotels in Indianapolis to remove grease from a commercial kitchen, when Sanchez, appearing intoxicated, approached and “instigated an altercation.”

The lawsuit claims Sanchez told Tole he was not allowed to be where he was, tried to enter Tole’s vehicle without permission, and blocked him from using his cellphone to contact his manager.

“The situation escalated when [Sanchez] physically blocked and shoved [Tole], leading [Tole] to use pepper spray in self-defense,” the complaint says.

The pepper spray did not stop Sanchez, who continued his aggression, and ultimately Tole was left with “significant injuries to his head, jaw, and neck.” When police arrived, Tole was bleeding “profusely,” the complaint says.

When detectives questioned Sanchez at the hospital, the Fox analyst “said he did not know who did this to him or where it happened,” according to an affidavit made public by the Marion County Sheriff’s Office.

An amended probable cause affidavit released Monday featured a new paragraph stating that the victim said he “suffered a severe laceration to the side of his face, penetrating all the way through his left cheek,” and that the pain eventually reached a 10 out of 10. Gruesome photos have been circulating online of the man’s injuries.

Sanchez intends to plead not guilty, according to a court document posted by local Fox reporter Angela Ganote.

Ganote also posted a statement Monday evening from Nick Sanchez, Mark’s brother: “This has been a deeply distressing time for everyone involved. Mark and our family are incredibly grateful for the concern, love, and support we’ve received over the past few days. Mark remains under medical care for the serious injuries he sustained and is focused on his recovery as the legal process continues. We would like to extend our heartfelt thanks to the first responders and medical staff.”

The suit says Sanchez “intentionally and unlawfully made harmful and offensive contact” with Tole that caused “serious bodily injury,” and that Fox should have known about Sanchez’s “unfitness as an employee, propensity for drinking, and/or harmful conduct.”

As of earlier Monday, Sanchez was still in the hospital, Ganote reported, contrary to reports Sunday that he was released from the hospital and taken to a local jail.

Fox did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz will apparently have one of its titular hosts back on the show relatively soon.

Jon “Stugotz” Weiner appeared on FS1’s Wake Up Barstool on Tuesday, and he said he will be back on the show with Dan Le Batard, which he cohosted for 20 years, multiple times in the next “30 to 45 days.”

What’s going on with Le Batard and Stugotz has been something of a mystery in sports media circles this year. In May, Barrett Media reported that Weiner was “stepping back” from Le Batard’s show. After the report, Le Batard did a bit where there was a literal inflatable “elephant in the room”—something he also did years before when he was the subject of controversy at ESPN—that he never addressed. One week later he acknowledged Weiner aspired to strike out on his own. 

While Stugotz’s name remains in Le Batard’s show title, he hasn’t been on it in months and has been largely replaced by longtime Miami radio host Jonathan Zaslow. 

In the meantime, Weiner launched his own new show, Stugotz and Company, and landed FanDuel as a presenting sponsor in August. This was notable because Le Batard and his media company, Meadowlark Media, have been sponsored by DraftKings since leaving ESPN in 2021. DraftKings and FanDuel are the Capulets and Montagues of the online sportsbook space, dating back to even before the legalization of sports betting when they operated as daily fantasy sports companies. 

“We’re having a blast with [Stugotz and Company]. Naturally, I did the show with Dan for 20 years. Still doing the show with Dan—I’ll be in there a bunch of shows coming up in the next 30, 45 days or so,” Weiner said on Wake Up Barstool. “When you do a show with someone like Dan, a lot of times you’re gonna go down the road that he wants to go down. What I’ve found liberating about this is I choose the road I want to go down. I’m not so much reacting to what he’s saying and what’s interesting to him; I am choosing what’s interesting to me.” 

When Weiner signed with FanDuel, it seemed from the outside like it might be quite some time, if ever, before he would return to Le Batard’s show.