Jemele Hill needed to be out at ESPN. Hill knew it. ESPN president Jimmy Pitaro knew it. And, now, Jemele Hill is out at ESPN.
The marriage between ESPN and Hill — the controversial sports commentator who waded into politics and sparred with President Donald Trump — has long been stuck in irreconcilable differences. Since leaving “SportsCenter” earlier this year, she has barely worked, making a divorce the obvious conclusion.
A buyout of her reported $2.5 million per year contract has been completed and her last day will be Friday, according to sources.
On Saturday night, the author James Miller, who wrote a book about ESPN, first tweeted the news of the breakup, calling it “amicable.” The timing, on a Saturday evening, was fortunate for Hill and ESPN in an attempt to lessen the news coverage of what had been a huge national story, both in politics and in sports. There had been rumblings last week of buyout talks between the two sides.
It is quite simple as to why the buyout happened: Hill wants to continue her involvement in politics, and ESPN wants out of politics.
Pitaro has made it clear ESPN is a sports network and does not want to be associated with politics, so he agreed to a buyout with Hill, according to sources. ESPN had no use for Hill on any of its programs after her ill-fated 6 p.m. “SportsCenter” with her former partner, Michael Smith, failed to deliver ratings. She first left Smith behind by quitting the show before the executive in charge of the program, Norby Williamson, had a chance to replace her. She would have been removed.
Nearly one year ago, on Sept. 11, 2017, Hill called Trump “a white supremacist who has largely surrounded himself [with] other white supremacists.” Though it broke ESPN’s social media rules about commenting on politics unrelated to sports, then-network president John Skipper failed to suspend Hill. The White House called for Hill to be fired.
A little more than a month later, Skipper decided to suspend Hill after she criticized Cowboys owner Jerry Jones’ anthem stance by tweeting, “Change happens when advertisers are impacted. If you feel strongly about JJ’s statement, boycott his advertisers.” She was off television for two weeks. ESPN called it a second offense. Hill said she regretted that she had “painted ESPN in an unfair light.”
Pitaro recently said he thinks the biggest misperception of ESPN is that it is political, and now he is putting action behind his words. Though the network’s on-air programming is mostly apolitical, it is hard to ask viewers to disassociate stances they read on social media when ESPN personalities are on TV, radio or writing for its website.
Despite the company’s policy, Hill incessantly tweeted about politics, even as she barely contributed to the network’s content in recent months, save a few columns for ESPN’s Undefeated website and some guest appearances on shows.
Now, Hill likely will look to try to go further into politics. ESPN will continue to try to move further away from politics. She had a very loud career at ESPN, but it is ending — quietly.