Dan Le Batard is unhappy with the racial makeup of NFL analysts on television. He says there are too many white analysts and not enough black ones for his liking.
“Luke Kuechly is now the up-and-coming broadcasting star that people like. When they look at Tony Romo and they put him on the bench for a while, they replace him with J.J. Watt,” Le Batard said on his podcast. “[Rob Gronkowski] has a job, even though Gronk is a notoriously bad talker. I just wonder if you guys notice that the sport is disproportionately black, and the broadcasters that get hired are disproportionately white, and it’s on purpose. I’m asking the question. It’s to make it palatable to the broadest section of people.”
He continued, asking his co-hosts and listeners to, at least, notice the whiteness on air.
“I’m just asking if you guys notice that all of the up-and-coming people are always the white guys. There aren’t that many white stars in football. There are plenty of black stars. Why are the white ones the only ones who get the broadcasting jobs?… I’m just wondering whether people notice. It’s always J.J. Watt. It’s always Luke Kuechly. As if there aren’t a bunch of Jonathan Vilmas out there that are available.”
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Imagine hosting a sports show and choosing that as your topic on Sept. 1, just days before the start of the college football season and a week before the NFL season.
For background, Le Batard has spent much of the past year complaining about the number of white people he sees on television. More on that later.
Not only is Le Batard pandering, but his gripe is also invalid. He cherry-picked a few media hires while ignoring many others.
Le Batard pointed to the promotions of Kuechly and Watt. Notice how he ignored ESPN adding Jason McCourty to Monday Night Countdown, the pregame show that will serve as bumper programming for the Super Bowl this season. He also neglected to mention that McCourty’s brother, Devin, is now a halftime analyst at NBC.
CBS elevated Charles Davis to its lead college football game analyst role this offseason. Fox Sports recently added Robert Griffin III to its color-commentator lineup. Le Batard mentioned neither move.
What’s more, the majority of NFL analysts at ESPN are black. Dan Orlovsky is the only full-time white NFL analyst who contributes daily across various programs.
ESPN’s featured NFL analysts include Orlovsky, Mina Kimes, an Asian woman, and several black former players, including McCourty, Marcus Spears, Chris Canty, Andrew Hawkins, Louis Riddick, Sam Acho and Booger McFarland.
We could continue. In fact, we could not find a major sports network where white NFL analysts outnumber black ones.
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So which network is Le Batard referring to and shaming? OutKick asked him that exact question Tuesday:
“Dan, did you count the number of white vs. black NFL analysts in the industry? If not, why did you make a false claim that networks ‘disproportionately’ hire white ones over black?
“I just looked at the rosters of ESPN, Fox, CBS and NBC. There are far more black NFL analysts than white ones.”
Notice that we did not include Meadowlark Media, the sports media company Le Batard owns and operates. It turns out Meadowlark is one company in which black people appear to be underrepresented on air.
Meadowlark’s NFL show is hosted by Dave Dameshek, a white man. Other hosts on the network include David Samson, Brendan Hunt, Rebecca Lowe, Anthony Curcio and Jessica Smetana. All of them are, wait for it, white.
The only non-white host we could find was Pablo Torre, who is Asian.
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We asked Le Batard about the lack of black analysts and hosts at his network. We will update the story if he responds.
But do not count on it. We also asked Le Batard about a previous comment he made on a similar topic. In July, he criticized ESPN for not putting any black faces in positions of leadership.
“You’re gonna have a network run by McAfee and all of the white people now in charge there,” Le Batard said about ESPN after the network fired Ryan Clark, whom he referred to as a “proud black man.”
As we noted at the time, Le Batard’s company also lacks black leadership and is made up mostly, you guessed it, of white people.
He did not provide an explanation for his hypocrisy. Nor did he explain why he criticized the UFC for retaining Dana White, seen on video slapping his wife after she slapped him, and then apologizing, while employing Howard Bryant, who was arrested for allegedly beating and choking his wife.
In sum, unless your workforce properly represents Bluesky’s preferred demographics, you best not get into the business of counting the skin colors of employees at a particular company. You will likely end up looking like a hypocrite yourself.
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And a poser. Dan Le Batard is a fraud.
No serious person is that concerned about the racial breakdown of the people breaking down NFL games.
He is pandering. He’s race-baiting to appease the people who shamed him for his previous juvenile lifestyle, while quietly surrounding himself with mostly white men.
