ESPN: No Obama For You, Bill Simmons!

The Worlds of politics and sports collided today when it was learned that ESPN decided to put a kibosh on a podcast interview that writer Bill Simmons was to conduct with Presidential hopeful Barack Obama. Many (from both worlds: MSM and Blogs) are lambasting ESPN for their decision. (This isn’t the first time that the network has decided against a talk with Obama, as recent as earlier this month they nixed a sit down with Stuart Scott.) Everyone has already posed the question, “Why wouldn’t they go forward with this?” But I’m going to ask the question “Why would they?” ↵↵ESPN has long been known for not getting involved in the game of politics and why should they start now? One of the best things about the network is that they cater to all walks of life and only airing one candidate’s views, no matter which party, could hurt them among certain fanbases. ESPN’s Josh Krulewitz told the New York Daily News the following:↵

↵↵⇥“It’s absolutely not an issue about any one candidate. Our position is that when they’re down to the final two candidates, we’ll look for options to interview each accordingly. Fans don’t expect political coverage on our air. We did Kerry and Bush on ESPN. Separate one-on-ones that were sports related.” ↵↵I’m inclined to agree with Krulewitz. As intriguing as this Presidential race has been, I don’t really want politics crossing over into Sports. It stinks for Bill Simmons because he would have been conducting one of the most important interviews the network has had in quite some time, but in the essence of fairness (and ESPN’s audience) it’s best to have either both on or neither. Plus, when vice versa occurs, and a politically charged network like CNN tries to cover sporting events, it never really ends well (watch evidence after the jump).
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