Max Kellerman To Be Suspended For Calling SEC Fans Dumb Rednecks?
We would like to show you a description here but the site won’t allow us. Following the incredible feat, Kellerman went to Twitter to walk back his take. What an incredible moment for Brady and his fans. Tom Brady has had a full Hall of Fame careerin the time SINCE I made the cliff prediction. — Max Kellerman (@maxkellerman) January 24, 2021.
Is Max Kellerman going to be suspended for calling SEC fans dumb rednecks during an episode of First Take this week?
It remains to be seen.
During a back and forth with Stephen A. Smith on Thursday’s episode of their popular ESPN show, Kellerman made the case that SEC fans are essentially just a group of ignorant hillbillies who could not separate fiction from facts.
“Stephen A., you made the argument a couple weeks ago, you thought if SEC football wasn’t played, that could swing the general election,” Kellerman said.
“Because people in Trump’s base would be very upset that they didn’t have football, which is practically a religion down there. And I disagreed. Because he would simply shift blame, because the pandemic is raging. They seem to be susceptible to very low-quality information, and easy to propagandize and almost immune to facts.
“Because, as Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s adviser, said, they have alternative facts. And if they stay in their propaganda silos — like the Fox News propaganda silo — it wouldn’t matter what happened because they’d say the handling of the pandemic has been great.
“The handling of the pandemic has been the worst in the industrialized democratic world, by far. By far, in the United States, at a federal level, it’s been a disaster. And as a result we’re dealing with this pandemic. And yet, I didn’t think that would affect voters because the blame would be shifted.”
Kellerman was referencing a conversation that he and Smith had back on August 12, when his co-host argued that a lack of SEC football in 2020 could lead to votes for President Donald Trump in November’s election.
“I’m going to say that it’s going to affect the politics of this nation, potentially,” Smith said at the time.
“We have to take into consideration that the president of the United States basically took the South when he won the electoral college, obviously not the popular vote. We’ve heard him come out and say, ‘It would be tremendously bad,’ and all this other stuff if college football was canceled. Not really accepting his role, in terms of being responsible for all of this.
“When you look at the ACC, when you look at the SEC, one could argue that was Donald Trump country. And so if they don’t have college football, and they’re economically ravaged because of the absence of college football, and the absence of that revenue from those local economies, how do we anticipate people are going to react to that?”
Kellerman brought the conversation back up on Thursday to suggest that NFL fans, unlike SEC fans, would have a major impact on the election if players opted to cancel the season in protest of racial injustice in America.
“If the NFL doesn’t play football, I think the NFL players have a lot of power here,” Kellerman said. Drivers jabra bluetooth devices.
“If they don’t play football, at a certain point, the core will remain. But the football base goes all throughout the country.
“It doesn’t just hit one or another’s political base, but insofar as there’s a such thing as swing voters still, it would absolutely affect some of them. If the NFL season isn’t played or it’s interrupted, as a result of social justice issues — and of course we all understand this is all against the backdrop of the pandemic,” he continued.
“I know we exist in this sports bubble and we have this outsized idea of the effect of sports, but I think that might actually have political consequences in a general election.”
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Max Kellerman Angered Fans
Kellerman’s comments were not met with a warm reception in certain circles. Various SEC fans immediately took to Twitter to point out how insulted they were by the First Take host’s implications.
ESPN’s Max Kellerman calls SEC football fans stupid and “easy to propagandize and almost immune to facts.”
Why the hell did he think going on national TV and calling a large portion of the country dumb was a smart idea? pic.twitter.com/I2kqxg2uXg
— David Hookstead (@dhookstead) August 27, 2020
ESPN’s Max Kellerman says SEC football fans are dumb, susceptible to propaganda & don’t care about facts and that’s why they support President Trump. pic.twitter.com/4ML7VHcJhP
— The Daily Coverage (@TDCoverage) August 27, 2020
As of yet, ESPN has yet to comment on Kellerman’s position. The network has a deeply-entrenched relationship with SEC football that puts a lot of money in many people’s pockets, and one of their biggest stars coming out and insulting the conference likely doesn’t help that.
Will Kellerman ultimately get suspended? Time will tell. But if he doesn’t, ESPN may be opening a can of worms that it will have a hard time closing back up down the line.
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In a fun change of pace, perhaps the silliest comment on ESPN’s First Take this week came not from Stephen A. Smith, but from Max Kellerman. On Wednesday’s First Take, Kellerman decided to blast the NHL as “not a major sports league,” saying “In the United States, no one really cares about hockey.”
Here’s the clip:
Yikes. “nobody really cares about hockey… it’s not one of the 4 major team sports” ???? pic.twitter.com/5rD89ebx8D
— NHL News (@puck_report2) June 3, 2020
And here’s a transcription from Mark J. Burns of Sports Business Journal, who pointed out the irony of an ESPN figure saying this ahead of possible rights negotiations with the NHL:
ESPN's @maxkellerman takes a swipe (jokingly?) at hockey and the NHL on @FirstTake yesterday. Says 'It’s not one of the four major team sports.'
Plot twist will be when ESPN bids for NHL rights during the upcoming cycle of negotiations. pic.twitter.com/A5o7ohZulm
Max Kellerman And Tom Brady
— Mark J. Burns (@markjburns88) June 4, 2020
This also drew backlash from hockey media figures, such as NHL.com’s E.J. Hradek:
Max Kellerman Rap Twitter
This has been going on since the sports radio generation took hold. Many guys – like @maxkellerman – only speak to their supposed strengths. (He said Isaiah was only slightly better than Stockton in dream team discussion ????). Too lazy to put in the time on hockey. Do the work!!! https://t.co/xFh1BN5Q64
Max Kellerman Iguodala Twitter
— E.J. Hradek (@EJHradek_NHL) June 4, 2020
And from some of Kellerman’s ESPN colleagues who do care about the NHL, including Linda Cohn:
What do you mean “Nobody cares about hockey”. Very disappointed and surprised you would make a statement like this @maxkellerman. It’s insulting to this great game, those associated with it ,cover it, and to the passionate fan base here in the United States. #NHLhttps://t.co/mMWYgRj75v
— Linda Cohn (@lindacohn) June 4, 2020
Of course, there’s a long history of ESPN figures saying that audiences don’t care about hockey, especially as a way to defend thelimitedcoverage of the NHL they’ve provided. The most notable case there came in 2012, when then-senior vice president Vince Doria (who retired in 2015) discussed their hockey coverage with Ed Sherman:
Why does ESPN hate hockey?
Doria: We don’t hate hockey. When I worked in Boston (as sports editor of the Boston Globe), I probably went to more Bruins games than Celtics. There’s probably not a better in-the-house sport than hockey. Watching it live. My own personal feeling is that it never transferred well to television. I’m not exactly sure why that is.
Why does hockey get a limited presence on SportsCenter?
It’s a sport that engenders a very passionate local following. If you’re a Blackhawks fan in Chicago, you’re a hardcore fan. But it doesn’t translate to television, and where it really doesn’t transfer much to is a national discussion, which is something that typifies what we do.
Baseball fans are interested where Albert Pujols is going. NBA fans are interested in the Miami Heat. For whatever reason, and this is my unsubstantiated research on it, hockey doesn’t generate that same kind of interest nationwide. You look at national talk shows. Hockey rarely is a topic. People in Boston aren’t that interested with what’s going on with the Blackhawks.
Would it be different if you were a rights holder?
Doria: Well, we were at one time. It wasn’t that different. Listen, I guess if we were rights holder, there probably would be a little more attention paid to it. It’s typical that would happen. We might throw it to commentators who were inside the building. Now we’re not inside the building.
Those comments drew a lot of attention at the time, both for Doria’s “doesn’t transfer much to a national discussion” logic and for his saying the quiet part out loud (that ESPN pays more attention editorially to sports where they have live rights). But since then, ESPN has been much more positive on the NHL publicly, with executive vice president (programming and scheduling) Burke Magnus (who’s actually involved in rights negotiations, unlike Doria or Kellerman) telling Ryan Glasspiegel (then of The Big Lead) in 2018 that “it is just a great sport. I personally love it. I think the NHL playoffs and Stanley Cup is one of the great competitive sport properties on television.”
And it’s not just about Magnus’ words. ESPN has taken some steps to improve their hockey coverage since 2012, from bolstering the attention the NHL gets on SportsCenter to televising the World Cup of Hockey in 2016 to going from ignoring the trade deadline to simulcasting some of TSN’s coverage. The 2017 layoffs devastated ESPN.com’s existing hockey coverage, but they’ve brought in some notable NHL writers on board since then, particularly Emily Kaplan and Greg Wyshynski. And ESPN+ has aired a lot of NHL games, including more than 180 in the 2018-19 season. So the comments from the likes of Magnus and John Buccigross have been seen as more than just polite in many corners; they’ve added to the case that ESPN may well try for at least some NHL TV rights (not just ESPN+) after the league’s deal with NBC expires (following the 2020-21 season). That’s an interesting backdrop for one of their most prominent on-air personalities to be saying “No one really cares about hockey.”
The latest
But that doesn’t mean “No one really cares about hockey” or that the TV ratings “don’t do anything.” The NHL’s regular season is excellent content for RSNs and good content for NBCSN, the playoffs overall are excellent content for NBCSN (and NBCUniversal’s other cable channels) and good content for NBC, and the Stanley Cup Final is solid content for NBC. And there’s no real argument that the NHL is not the U.S.’ fourth-biggest professional team sport, at least when it comes to TV; by both viewership and contracts, it’s miles ahead of the likes of MLS. It’s a long way behind MLB and the NBA, for sure, but those leagues are a long way behind the NFL.
So while there’s a clear tiering effect amongst those four sports, and while any “the four major professional team sports” discussion needs to bear that in mind, the NHL is the obvious fourth. And it does post significant national TV numbers. (Which is a big part of why it’s trying to hold a postseason despite COVID-19 concerns.) And yes, the NHL gets more attention in Canada (which is why it gets more from its Canadian TV deal than its U.S. one despite Canada’s population being only 11 percent of the U.S. number), but it’s not an irrelevant U.S. TV property, contrary to Kellerman’s claims.
Will Kellerman’s comments actually affect anything? Probably not, although it is fun to envision NBC executives playing this clip during their next rights negotiations with the NHL. Kellerman is a talking head on a hot take show who doesn’t have any actual programming or scheduling power, so a shot from him at hockey doesn’t matter that much. But his comment fits in with a long history of ESPN ignoring or downplaying the NHL, and it illustrates that at least some of ESPN’s studio programming is likely to continue that even if they do have rights. Not being discussed on First Take isn’t the worst thing in the world (it’s notable that Kellerman’s co-host Stephen A. Smith’s previous contributions to the NHL conversation include complaining about ties even after ties were taken out), and First Take is far from an accurate discussion of what’s important in sports (it’s pretty much just NFL and NBA hot takes, and MLB is doing fine despite being largely ignored there), but it’s certainly interesting to see a high-profile ESPN personality blasting hockey on the airwaves again.