Clay Travis Lashes Out at Cancel Culture After ESPN Takes Rachel Nichols Off-Air: ‘Sayonara, You Weren’t Woke Enough’
Rachel Nichols has been removed from ESPN’s NBA coverage and all on-air responsibilities as an apparent consequence from controversial audio that was leaked earlier this summer.
Many basketball fans were stunned by the news. Others on social media slammed ESPN and especially cancel culture for the decision, with Outkick founder Clay Travis leading the charge.
“The woke police finding another victim,” Travis said on Outkick the Show. “Cancel culture has come for ESPN’s own red-haired NBA Star Rachel Nichols. She is no more. She will cease to exist at ESPN.”
“ESPN further following in the footsteps of the woke universe,” the conservative radio host and Fox News contributor added. “Rachel Nichols for years, lectured everyone as the ESPN employees covering the NBA are required to do about the woke bonafides of the NBA. Even as the NBA’s overall ratings collapsed, Rachel Nichols made the decision to defend the NBA and all of the woke idiocy that that league embraced.”
Earlier this summer, a more than year old recording of Nichols having a private conversation with PR executive Adam Mendelsohn was released. In the audio, Nichols could be heard implying that ESPN chose Maria Taylor to host their NBA Finals coverage because she is Black.
“Rachel Nichols was fine with diversity and inclusion, as long as diversity and inclusion didn’t take away her job,” Travis added, citing Nichols private comments about Taylor. “For all those bleeding-heart liberals out there, the super woke people in the sports industry – if you truly believe in woke sports, why don’t you give up your job if you’re a White person and give it to a minority?”
When the controversial audio was released last month, Taylor was in a contract dispute with ESPN. She ultimately left Disney’s sports brand for NBC immediately after the NBA Finals. Despite having one year left on her contract, Nichols won’t regain her former job and replace Taylor on NBA Countdown, instead ESPN made it clear they have no use for her.
“I’m a rarity. I say exactly what I think,” Travis said, explaining why he counters most “woke” sports media members. “I treat everybody – White, Black, Asian, Hispanic, gay, straight, male, female – everybody the exact same…and I think that makes me, probably the most honest man in all of sports.”
“It just further illuminates the hypocrisy of people like Rachel Nichols,” Travis added. “Rachel Nichols career may now be over because she wasn’t woke enough. One of the queens of woke NBA Twitter, wasn’t woke enough. This is what happens – the revolution eventually starts to guillotine some of the top revolutionaries.”
Watch above via Outkick
