Sports pundit Dan Le Batard sparked a conversation this week on his podcast when he highlighted what he saw as a discrepancy in the amount of Black former NFL players that are given top broadcasting opportunities compared to their white counterparts.
“Luke Kuechly is now the up-and-coming broadcasting star that people like,” Le Batard said on his show. “When they look at (CBS analyst) Tony Romo and they put him on the bench for a while, they replace him with J.J. Watt. (Rob Gronkowski) has a job, even though Gronk is a notoriously bad talker.”
“And I just wonder if you guys notice that the sport is disproportionately Black, and the broadcasters that get hired are disproportionately white, and it’s on purpose. … It’s to make it palatable to the broadest section of people. … I’m just asking if you guys noticed that the up-and-coming people are always the white guys?” Le Batard said.
Former NFL MVP Cam Newton, who now hosts a podcast called “4th& 1 With Cam Newton,” agreed with Le Batard’s take, but disagreed with a follow-up response given by a co-host on Le Batard’s program.
“Conversely, though, it’s the Black players that do all the podcasting,” Le Batard’s co-host Jonathan Zaslow said in reply to Le Batard’s commentary.
Zaslow’s comment drew a strong rebuke from the ex-Carolina Panthers quarterback, who said former athletes often only have the option to start their own media venture due to lack of opportunities elsewhere.
“Dammit, that was the most ignorant response ever!” Newton said. “Why are (Black players) doing the podcasts, brother? It’s because the major networks aren’t giving us the same opportunity, brother. We are forced to control our own narrative, because we can’t tell a narrative to the network that does not give us mainstream airtime.”
A majority of Newton’s thoughts on the topic can be seen in the video below.
The Panthers were able to make a Super Bowl appearance in 2016 behind the leadership of Newton and Kuechly, who at 35 years old became the second-youngest person to be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame earlier this year.
Kuechly has worked as an analyst for the Panthers Radio Network since 2022, and he was also chosen to be the color commentator on Netflix’s four NFL broadcasts during the upcoming season.
Despite having no prior broadcasting experience, seven-time Super Bowl champion quarterback Tom Brady secured a reported 10-year, $375 million contract to be Fox’s lead NFL TV color commentator two years before he even retired; Brady began working at Fox during the 2024 NFL season.
Newton, although he has never officially retired, last played a NFL game in 2022. Most recently, he was a contributor on ESPN’s “First Take” alongside Stephen A. Smith until he was among the employees laid off by the company in July.
In addition to Newton, ESPN also parted ways over the summer with former Black NFL players and veteran analysts Bart Scott, Damien Woody, and Ryan Clark.
“I want you to learn one rule about the times we live in right now: If you don’t own your own platform you’re gonna get overlooked, bypassed and be extinct like dinosaurs,” Newton said after ESPN decided not to renew his contract.
“Ryan Clark gonna be OK, ‘The Pivot’ (podcast) ain’t going nowhere,” Newton added. “It’s unfortunate what happened to me, but I got ‘4th & 1,’ I ain’t going nowhere.”
