ESPN's Reaction to Roe v. Wade Being Overturned Was as Weird and Unhinged as You'd Expect

Bonchie reporting for RedState 

On Friday, after 50 years and millions of deaths, Roe v. Wade was finally overturned by the Supreme Court. The backlash to the decision began immediately, with pro-abortion fanatics taking the streets. That led to some violence overnight with more promised over the next several days.

But while it makes sense to see impassioned reactions to Roe flowing from all corners of the political sphere, it makes far less sense for a sports network like ESPN to chime in. Yet, that’s exactly what happened, and it was as weird and unhinged as you’d expect.

The obvious question here is: Why ESPN is covering this at all? Audience members are tuning in to get the latest MLB scores or to check out how NFL workouts are going. Who exactly is asking for Malika Andrews to cry on air while misstating what the Supreme Court ruling to overturn Roe even does? Who cares what WNBA players have to say given no one even watches that league? Where’s the demand for that?

I think the answer is that there isn’t any demand for that. That’s testified to by the fact that ESPN’s ratings are shrinking, while parent-company Disney is in the midst of a stock collapse. If anything, the decision to mix sports with politics in this way is turning viewers away. Yet, as has happened in corporations across the nation, younger, woke staffers are running the show, ensuring that stuff like this makes it on air. Executives are terrified of internal dissent if they don’t acquiesce.

Regardless of the corporate concerns, driving long-standing entities into the ground in order to appease a small minority of ultra-woke individuals is just bad for business. It makes no sense whatsoever. Do shareholders simply not care about the losses they are taking due to the decision to politicize and divide, even with something as normally universal as sports? Perhaps those shareholders just aren’t organized to the point where they can fight back, but you’d think things would reach a breaking point soon enough.

Past that, it’s especially disturbing to see a black woman tear up on the air about the overturning of a “50-year precedent” — when it was the overturning of 60-year precedent Plessy that ended segregation, and that’s just one of several examples. What exactly is the argument being made? That precedent is only untouchable when it protects the killing of the unborn?

Again, the way in which the left attempts to address the issue of Roe remains one of the most illogical, tortured arguments in political history. Still, ESPN isn’t supposed to be about politics. Unfortunately, it appears zero lessons have been learned, and for that, they’ll continue to lose viewers.