{"id":2226413,"date":"2024-04-21T11:00:02","date_gmt":"2024-04-21T15:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/sage-steele-reveals-how-politics-infiltrated-espn-in-sunday-special-sit-down-with-ben-shapiro\/"},"modified":"2024-04-21T11:01:10","modified_gmt":"2024-04-21T15:01:10","slug":"sage-steele-reveals-how-politics-infiltrated-espn-in-sunday-special-sit-down-with-ben-shapiro","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/sage-steele-reveals-how-politics-infiltrated-espn-in-sunday-special-sit-down-with-ben-shapiro\/","title":{"rendered":"Sage Steele discusses ESPN&#8217;s political influence in &#8216;Sunday Special&#8217; interview with Ben Shapiro"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">26<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fsage-steele-reveals-how-politics-infiltrated-espn-in-sunday-special-sit-down-with-ben-shapiro%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2226413&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>Sage Steele, a former reporter and host at ESPN, shared insights on the growing political influence at the sports network during an \u200cinterview on &#8220;The \u2062Ben Shapiro \u200cShow Sunday \u200bSpecial.&#8221; She revealed details about ESPN&#8217;s shift towards leftist viewpoints, which eventually led to her departure following\u2064 a settlement\u200c with the company. Steele highlighted the changing dynamics from sports-centric discussions to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/oklahoma-teacher-quits-after-being-disciplined-for-banned-books-sign\/\" title=\"Oklahoma Teacher Quits After Being Disciplined For Banned Books Sign\">politically charged content<\/a>.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<p>The anchor who was punished by ESPN for expressing her opinion on politics and the COVID jab revealed some inside details about how politics became a major issue at the sports network on the latest edition of the \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/show\/sunday-special\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Ben Shapiro Show Sunday Special<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sage Steele, a longtime reporter and \u201cSportcenter\u201d host, left ESPN last year after settling a lawsuit with the media company following allegations that ESPN retaliated against her for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/biden-quietly-rips-reporters-not-asking-relevant-questions\/\" title=\"Biden Quietly Rips Reporters Not Asking \u2018Relevant Questions\u2019\">making negative comments<\/a> about COVID vaccine mandates and former President Barack Obama. But political shifts at ESPN began taking place years before her lawsuit and departure, creating an environment that was extremely unfriendly to those who pushed back against <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/mean-girl-chrissy-teigen-was-just-exposed-but-her-liberal-privilege-is-protecting-her\/\" title=\"Mean Girl Chrissy Teigen Was Just Exposed. But Her Liberal Privilege Is Protecting Her.\u00a0\">leftist talking points<\/a>, Steele told Shapiro.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSports was a uniting factor. \u2026 You could go to a party with people you didn\u2019t even know, and you could just talk about sports and it\u2019s a totally safe space where nobody\u2019s going to get offended. It was going to be just kind of a fun thing to do and it made a turn,\u201d Shapiro said, asking, \u201cWhere did the sporting world lose its way and decide that politics had to become such a part of the coverage?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Steele, who joined ESPN in 2007, said that when Barack Obama ran against and defeated Republican candidate John McCain the next year, politics wasn\u2019t a major concern at the network, but there was a \u201chuge turn\u201d in 2016.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI remember being on Twitter and watching the posts from my bosses, executives making huge decisions for ESPN, tweeting about Donald Trump winning,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd I remember being blown away like, is this okay that our bosses are doing it? And it just was allowed to stay. And then, it was gloves off. Everybody said whatever they wanted, especially, you know, not just Trump winning, but Hillary losing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/episode\/when-sports-go-woke-sage-steele\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">WATCH THE FULL \u2018SUNDAY SPECIAL\u2019 EPISODE WITH SAGE STEELE<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Steele added that John Skipper, ESPN\u2019s president at the time \u201cwas kind of fine with people spouting off.\u201d She said the president\u2019s decision to allow political opinion, which was nearly exclusively from those on the Left, was mind-boggling to her.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLike any business, I don\u2019t care if you\u2019re a television network, if you\u2019re like a local hardware store, I think we want money from everybody, not just people that we align with, like, why draw that line? It\u2019s just bad for business,\u201d she said, adding \u201cThis is the place where people come to escape that crap.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Steele told Shapiro that she was happy when ESPN\u2019s new president James Pitaro took over in 2018 and said \u201cenough with the politics.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI thought it was awesome,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd I personally thanked him for that because he felt the same way as far as [politics] just doesn\u2019t belong in sports. And then COVID hit and then George Floyd, and the rest is history.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd they could not put that genie back in the bottle,\u201d Steele added.<\/p>\n<p>Steel\u2019s departure from ESPN hasn\u2019t stopped her from continuing her career as she recently launched her podcast \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/the-sage-steele-show\/id1737682826\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Sage Steele Show<\/a>\u201d on Bill Maher\u2019s Club Random Studios platform.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sage Steele, an anchor penalized by ESPN for her political and COVID jab opinions, disclosed insights on politics at the sports network on &#8220;The Ben Shapiro Show Sunday Special.&#8221; A former long-time &#8220;SportsCenter&#8221; host, Steele parted ways with ESPN recently<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":324,"featured_media":2226414,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/dw-wp-production.imgix.net\/2024\/04\/MixCollage-21-Apr-2024-08-41-AM-921-e1713706912884.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[541],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2226413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-daily-wire"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/dw-wp-production.imgix.net\/2024\/04\/MixCollage-21-Apr-2024-08-41-AM-921-e1713706912884.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2226413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/324"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2226413"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2226413\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2226414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2226413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2226413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2226413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}