As fans get ready to watch their teams finally play meaningful football on the field, talk radio host Dan LeBatard has his eyes focused elsewhere: the broadcast booth.
On Tuesday’s edition of The Dan LeBatard Show, the program’s namesake used former Panthers linebacker Luke Kuechly’s budding broadcast opportunity to illustrate the racial discrepancy between the majority of the people who analyze the game and those who play it.
“Luke Kuechly is now the up-and-coming broadcasting star that people like. When they look at Tony Romo, and they put him on the bench for a while, they replace him with J.J. Watt. Gronk has a job, even though Gronk is a notoriously bad talker,” Le Batard explained.
“And I just wonder if you guys notice that the sport is disproportionately Black, and the broadcasters who get hired are disproportionately white, and it’s on purpose … it’s to make it palatable to the broadest section of people.”
He added, “There aren’t that many white stars in football. There are plenty of Black stars,” he said. “Why are the white ones the only ones who get the broadcasting jobs?”
A couple of points need to be made.
While there is a pronounced disparity among gameday in-stadium broadcast crews, the play-by-play and color analysts who actually call the games, there are many black analysts on the studio shows.
For example, NBC just hired former Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin to join Sunday Night Football. ESPN’s Monday Night Countdown has Jason McCourty and Marcus Spears.
In addition, the Fox NFL Sunday show has Curt Menefee and Michael Strahan. There are other examples as well.
As far as there not being “that many” white stars in football. That depends on how you look at it.
Yes, the majority of the league’s players are black, and, not surprisingly, the majority of the league’s stars are black.
However, there are a significant number of white stars in the league, at least compared to recent years, and not all of them are quarterbacks.
Las Vegas’ Maxx Crosby is a certifiable terror on the defensive line. His teammate, Brock Bowers, is probably the best tight end in football. When healthy, and admittedly, it’s rare that that’s the case, San Francisco’s Nick Bosa and Christian McCaffrey are star-level players. You could throw their teammate, tight end George Kittle, in that discussion as well.
Detroit’s Aidan Hutchinson is nightmare fuel for any opposing QB.
There’s not an offensive lineman in the league that wants to line up across from Denver’s Zach Allen. Nor are there many defensive linemen who want to line up across from Allen’s teammate, left tackle Garrett Bolles.
Rams wideout Puka Nacua is arguably the best wide receiver in the game; he’s neither white nor black.
“It’s always J.J. Watt, it’s always Luke Kuechly, as if there aren’t a bunch of Jonathan Vilmas out there that are available,” Le Batard said.
It’s a matter that’s open to debate. But if there were more Jonathan Vilmas out there, I’d be willing to bet they would get broadcasting jobs.