ESPN’s Paul Finebaum revealed he chose not to run for Senate in Alabama after “political operatives” told him to go after Disney — ESPN’s parent company.
Back in September, Finebaum told OutKick’s Clay Travis that he was considering running for a U.S. Senate seat in Alabama. That seat will soon be vacated by Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), who intends to run for governor.
After a great deal of consideration, however, Finebaum informed Travis in early December that he decided against the pivot to politics. Instead, Finebaum will remain as one of ESPN’s top voices in college football.
Speaking to CBS’s Major Garrett on Thursday, Finebaum shared a glimpse behind the scenes to explain what led him to that decision:
Being in this cauldron for three months, I saw the path. I dealt with donors. I dealt with a lot of people, and at various moments — and I’ll get to the final reason in a minute — but they kept rushing me in. Even Coach Tuberville called me at one point and said, “You can’t wait much longer. You got to get in FEC files. You got to show you’re legitimate.”
So, fine. So I kept putting it off and putting it off, but, ultimately, the reason I couldn’t do it was the political operatives. Now, I know this sounds like I’m blaming something on other people, but I’m not. I’m just telling you the reality that you already know.
They told me the clearest and cleanest path to victory — I was running as a Republican in Alabama — was to run — and I’m just going to paraphrase the political operative’s words — “You need to run against woke Disney.” And I could not do it. I could not burn down the place I had worked for the last 13 years that had given me an opportunity as a Birmingham talk show host and use whatever you may think of Disney, and plenty of people have opinions. Disney owns ESPN, for those of you who don’t know. I couldn’t do it.
Finebaum added that those operatives also wanted him to say things that he simply “was not comfortable with.”
Watch above via CBS News.
