“How do you allow MSNBC to sponsor your flagship programming? I don’t know how much more evident you can be of how politicized ESPN has become. Would they accept the same ad saying the same thing from Fox News? I guarantee you they wouldn’t.”
With ESPN going through the most transformative period in their channel's history in a menacing and uncertain era of ‘cord cutting’, Clay Travis believes the company has led an inexplicable political crusade in recent years that has culminated in its most popular show ‘Sportscenter’ even accepting sponsoring from the unpoetically far-left cable news company MSNBC.
For an audience of sports fan so rich in variance when it comes to social beliefs, Travis says it’s shocking that a company already riddled with radioactive financial decay would take it upon itself to alienate their conservative viewers with an insultingly clear endorsement of liberal ideologies.
“This to me is totally fascinating; the politicization of sports and ESPN’s total kick in the teeth to anybody that didn’t vote for Hilary Clinton,” Travis said. “They’re basically saying to you [conservatives], ‘we don’t give a damn about you, we think you don’t matter, you aren’t important to us’. That’s exactly what that ad says to me; that’s exactly what ESPN’s programming decisions say to me.”
Travis thinks the ten second spot, which includes the tagline, ‘Sportscenter, brought to you by MSNBC; because information and facts have never been more important’, is an uncannily dogmatic exercise in intolerant branding that may be the final nail in the coffin for conservative sports fans thinking about switching to much more affordable streaming options in the face of an Orwellian cable giant.
“This tells us so many things to me: First, MSNBC data is telling them that ESPN is now a left-leaning network -- that it’s gone so far left that they believe they can reach their viewership by advertising during a sports show. That should be an utter indictment of ESPN. Secondly, how strange is it that NBC is spending money advertising on an ABC television property which is ESPN? That’s strange. Third, if you have a functional brain how do you accept this ad?”
At one time one of the most bulletproof companies in media history, Travis thinks the new ESPN has gone completely rogue, with its letterhead being its only lasting remnant.
"From the world-wide leader in sports to the world-wide leader in left-wing sports politics, MSNBC meet ESPN. MS-ESPN, it’s now a reality.”