Dan Le Batard gave his thoughts on the state of sports journalism again in the wake of the news of Pat McAfee compensating Aaron Rodgers to guest on "The Pat McAfee Show."
Le Batard spoke on "The Dan Le Batard Show" on Oct. 18 and discussed The New York Post report that McAfee had paid Rodgers and Alabama football head coach Nick Saban "millions" to appear on his show.
He said that while he personally tends to adhere to more traditional forms of journalism, he knows that the industry is changing how it approaches journalism. And ESPN is at the forefront of those changes.
"Generally speaking, conflict of interests are all over the place in journalism," Le Batard said. "ESPN, for one, has a bunch of business relationships with the leagues that they cover, and I don't think that most people listening to this care how they navigate those conflict of interests."
One example of ESPN doing business with the leagues it covers is the media rights deal that it has with the NBA. The Walt Disney Co. (DIS) -) pays over $1 billion a year to air the NBA on ABC and ESPN, therefore the success of the league benefits the network as well.
Related: Pat McAfee gets clarification from reporter who revealed his Aaron Rodgers payments
That could be viewed as a conflict of interest for the journalists that ESPN employs who are supposed to be impartial, at least by journalistic norms. But Le Batard noted that ESPN has slowly shifted away from this objectivity in large part because there is no true "infraction" that these companies are violating. And its found that consumers don't really care at all.
"[ESPN] decided to be a journalism company when no one asked them to do that and, it seems like, no one cared whether they did that or not," Le Batard said. "And now, slowly, they're getting out of that business with compromises like this and I don't think it affects the brand at all. When I saw all of that happen, I'm like, 'And there's the industry just changing and there's that place changing. And evolution isn't always bad but people are going to get uncomfortable with it and people are going to say 'Bad Look' because it looks different then what they're familiar with.'"
Related: Stephen A. Smith strongly defends Pat McAfee and Aaron Rodgers on ESPN's 'First Take'
Le Batard's colleague and former ESPN employee Mike Ryan Ruiz had similar sentiments saying that when we first heard the report about McAfee and Rodgers, he thought it was a "bad look." But upon further reflection, his perspective changed.
"In talking it through, I didn't have much of a problem with it, honestly," Ruiz said.
McAfee was defensive of the report by prominent sports media columnist Andrew Marchand, calling him a "rat" for approaching the story in that angle. Marchand has since responded, essentially saying the story wasn't meant to paint McAfee in a bad light because payments for guests are becoming more common in the business. He also added that McAfee isn't viewed as a journalist so he shouldn't be subject to the same ethical standards.
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