Former ESPN Anchor Says Executives Made It Clear She ‘Didn’t Matter’ As a Black Woman

Former ESPN anchor Cari Champion held nothing back when discussing her time on the hit network show First Take.

Champion sat down with the guys of I Am Athlete on their Monday episode to discuss her career and decision to depart from ESPN. Champion served as a moderator on the sports program, First Take, from 2012-2015 alongside media legends Skip Bayless and Stephan A. Smith.

Champion said during the audition process, it was evident the network was looking for a blonde woman, saying, “I went in for the audition, knowing they already wanted a blonde, cause this is Monday through Friday on a popular show. You’re not gonna hire a Black girl, especially not a brown-skinned Black girl. You’re not hiring me. Right. That’s how I went in.”

“Then I get the job and I know it’s a big deal, but they don’t tell me it’s a big deal cause they don’t want me to be nervous. They act like it’s no big,” she continued.

Champion spoke highly of her former co-hosts Bayless and Smith, saying, “I didn’t feel like I had to dumb myself down, which is honestly the reason why I think I got the job. I was completely naïve. I didn’t know, skip and Stephen A. that well, I just knew them from TV. I thought it was a lot of bluster. I thought it was just what they did, but they’re exactly who they are.”

“I say this and I’m not, this is no cap. They’re super talented, they worked hard. They taught me work ethic,” she admitted. “They worked hard and they did the homework and they came prepared. Nobody was unprepared.”

But the issues, Champion pointed out, came from within the show’s upper management, saying, “The problem was for me as a Black woman in that position and at the time, and we can do the research — Nobody was Monday through Friday on a popular two hour TV show, that was a Black woman at the time.”

She continued, “And they just, you know, they let me know I didn’t matter, you know, and whatever intentionally, unintentionally it was, it was obvious. It was just like, ‘You don’t matter. Just be happy that you’re here. Ask questions. Don’t talk. Be happy that you’re here.'”

Listen above via I Am Athlete.

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