This story has been updated.
ESPN has denied a report that it has barred Paul Finebaum from appearing on its various platforms after the longtime college football pundit expressed an interest in running for a soon-to-be vacant U.S. Senate seat in Alabama.
Radio host Clay Travis, the founder of the sports and politics website OutKick, reported on Monday, Oct. 6 that ESPN had canceled all of Finebaum’s scheduled appearances on shows across the ESPN family of networks, including ones that have taken place for “a decade plus.” Finebaum had teased the possibility of a Senate run in an interview with Travis last week.
Within 30 minutes of Travis’ initial post about Finebaum on social media, Bill Hofheimer, a spokesman for ESPN, strongly refuted the report.
“This is not true at all,” Hofheimer posted on X (formerly Twitter). “The below is TOTALLY FALSE.”
Travis quickly responded to Hofheimer’s denial, asking why Finebaum wasn’t on ‘SportsCenter’ on Sunday or ESPN’s morning shows Monday to discuss an eventful Week 6 of the college football season, highlighted by Penn State’s stunning loss to previously winless UCLA.
In a statement provided to USA TODAY, OutKick said it ‘stands by Clay’s reporting.’
Finebaum, a staple of the SEC and broader college football world for decades, has been with ESPN since 2014. In recent years, he has frequently appeared on ESPN’s biggest shows — ‘SportsCenter,’ ‘First Take’ and ‘Get Up’ — to discuss the biggest stories in college football.
Finebaum is scheduled to appear on ‘First Take’ on Tuesday, Oct. 7, a hit that had been previously arranged and was not a reaction to Monday’s report from Travis. Finebaum is also set to go on ‘SportsCenter’ this upcoming weekend. Finebaum’s work on his own show and ‘SEC Nation’ on the SEC Network have not been affected, either.
He’s not the first ESPN personality to hint at a run for public office. For much of the past 11 months since the 2024 presidential election, Stephen A. Smith, perhaps the network’s most prominent figure, has openly discussed a possible presidential run in 2028 and has continued to appear on ESPN shows.
Though he has been doing his radio show in Charlotte, North Carolina for much of his time at ESPN, Finebaum’s roots as a reporter and media personality are in Birmingham, Alabama, where his show and its legendary cast of regular callers became synonymous with the passion and mania that surrounds SEC football.
Finebaum told Travis he had been registered as a Republican in North Carolina, but he had recently moved back to Alabama and was planning on re-registering as a voter there.
Finebaum would have to make a decision to run by Jan. 26, 2026, the qualifying deadline in Alabama for the Senate race. The 70-year-old would be running to fill a seat being vacated by former Auburn football coach Tommy Tuberville, who has said he will run for governor of Alabama in 2026, right before his Senate term ends in 2027.
‘Alabama has always been the place I’ve felt the most welcome, that I’ve cared the most about the people,’ Finebaum told Travis. ‘I’ve spoken to people from Alabama for 35 years, and I feel there is a connection that is hard to explain.’
USA TODAY’s James Powel contributed to this report.