Jemele Hill had a tumultuous tenure at ESPN — and she's speaking out about the feud that's taking place within the network right now.
On Jan. 5, in the wake of the McAfee saying that ESPN exec Norby Williamson was "attempting to sabotage" his show, Hill posted on X (formerly Twitter) to say that she relates with McAfee.
I can relate. https://t.co/57q99SIHHd
— Jemele Hill (@jemelehill) January 5, 2024
The former SportsCenter host then hopped on "The Dan Le Batard Show" on Monday, Jan. 8 and showed support for Pat McAfee amid his current spat with ESPN and Williamson.
"I was pretty amused by it as well because this is just something that you just never see," Hill said. "And especially at a place like ESPN, where there is their sort of unofficial cardinal rule about talent on talent crime or letting what is happening in the building spill out into public arenas in the way in which Pat McAfee did. I mean, I've never seen that in the history of this network that somebody just took a flamethrower to one of the executives there who has been there forever."
She posited that McAfee's ability to call out a top member of ESPN management publicly could set a precedent for anyone at the network who feels slighted.
"If you're talent at ESPN and you see this happen, that is going to probably give you a little more sense of empowerment," Hill said. "Criticizing the company publicly is now open for business ... The reality is that this is setting a precedent in real time."
"When you're in the building and you're working for them, they try to sell you on the idea that everybody is treated the same," Hill said. "And we know not everybody is not treated the same."
Related: Here's how Aaron Rodgers just drove a $85 million wedge between ESPN and Pat McAfee
Hill had a public and notorious spat with the network after she posted tweets in 2017 about former president Donald Trump which included calling him a "white supremacist." ESPN later on issued a statement that Hill's views "do not represent the position of ESPN."
Her defense of McAfee is particularly interesting when recalling the left-leaning ideologies that put her at odds with the network. While McAfee has strayed away from political commentary himself, this feud with ESPN was all stirred up by the battle between late night host Jimmy Kimmel and McAfee's regular guest Aaron Rodgers, an outspoken anti-vaccine advocate.
But Hill's conversation with Dan Le Batard, a former ESPN personality himself who has been outspoken about his distaste for some of the network's practices, was less about political views and more about the treatment that ESPN's top brass has on its employees.
Le Batard mentioned that what makes McAfee different is that he is already a huge star on his own even without the network which allows him some liberty to be brash.
"This is not some scared, insecure journalist in the vanity business who's interested in respecting authority," Le Batard said. "This is a guy who's got all his own powers and is renting to them. He will be bigger the moment that he leaves there because he was too hot for Disney to handle than he was at any point before that. He has nothing to fear here.
Hill agreed, and even pointed out advice that former ESPN star Skip Bayless actually told her soon after she joined ESPN in 2006.
"[Bayless] said, one of the issues at the network is that they treat you differently depending on whether or not they feel like they made you," Hill said. "What he was basically saying is that the people there that they feel they are directly responsible for how their careers blossom, they tend to treat a certain way versus the people who they know they're not so attached to being there."
McAfee — who had a four-year, $120 million deal with FanDuel TV before moving to ESPN last year — is certainly one of the people who made his name outside of The Walt Disney (DIS) -) brand. And his ability to stand up for everyone at the ESPN has at least garnered the support of Hill.
"When you see a Pat McAfee that comes on that is a huge glitch in the Matrix, you sort of perversely cheer for this type of conflict," Hill said.
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