WCS 47: When ESPN put Rush on the NFL

w/: Olympic stars on OnlyFans + UAW’s X lawsuit + quitting legal weed

As we engage the first Presidential election cycle without Rush Limbaugh—that prototypical Republican influencer—let’s peer back at one of his most visible cultural moments, that September window when The Worldwide Leader of Sports tried to make a football staple of this rock-ribbed white supremacy.

There won’t ever be a 30-for-30 Disney documentary about this historic moment, but the chapter tells explicitly how little removed we are from the shadow of unabashed racism.

Limbaugh began his ascent with the California conservative crowd as an AM radio talk show host in late-80s Sacramento. He then went on to become the national GOP’s lead attack dog, largely on the strength of made-up stories about the Clintons and attacks on “feminazis.” The racism was simply Rush’s default pitch. It was his bread and butter, nothing special.

ESPN opted to platform Rush Limbaugh for the 2003 edition of NFL Countdown, adding his voice to a panel that included Chris Berman and Hall of Fame Uncle Tom Tom Jackson. Three games into the season, Limbaugh opined that young Eagles QB Donovan McNabb was getting preferential treatment because the liberal media craved a star Black quarterback. Jackson didn’t say shit to contest this, because that’s what good Black corporate media employees did in 2003.

On the next week’s pregame panel? Rush Limbaugh didn’t have a seat anymore. Berman led the on-air apology. My recollection is of no one being surprised by the mild scandal. If you were conscious of Limbaugh, you knew Rush was gonna Rush. Range was not his jam.

Nicolas Cage has signed on to play Madden in David O. Russell’s biopic,
and I cannot tell you how excited that makes me.

That native hatred for Black people, which is slowly being bred out of the nation, was Limbaugh’s main feature and attraction. It was not a bug. That fall Sunday’s take was 2003 American political red meat, but terrible sports analysis. McNabb would go on to lead the Eagles to a Super Bowl appearance and become a beloved Philadelphia figure.

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Six years later he did attempt to buy into the St. Louis Rams. An NPR reporter on the story said the idea might be viable as the St. Louis squad was sorry and Limbaugh would “crack the whip.” That guy still has his job.

NPR is as likely to revisit that one as ESPN is to do that aforementioned 30-for-30. So, you can just ask yourself, What are the consequences of living so close to flagrant and unacknowledged racism?

Football is indeed in the air. Let’s call this week’s lineup The Big 10:

10 That male Olympic pole vaulter will get rich, too, once he starts his OnlyFans

Pole vaulter Alysha Newman cleared 4.85 meters in her bronze medal-winning attempt, climbed out of the thick foam mat, and joyfully let loose with The Twerk Heard ’Round the World. Her OnlyFans account subscriptions exploded tenfold.

The 30-year-old Canadian isn’t the only Olympic athlete whose reliance on OnlyFans to pay their for their austere lives who was tied to the Paris Games, on top of the dozens who’ve resorted to GoFundMe.

NBC made a killing. The International Olympics Committee has a fund that’s closing in on $2 billion. What’s wrong with this picture?

This very, very sexy picture.
Associated Press

• “For me, it’s been an absolute lifeline,” British diver Jack Laugher said a few years ago, before a team official whisked him away, ending the interview

• “The entire funding model for Olympic sport is broken,” insists Rob Koehler, Global Athlete’s director general. “The IOC generates now over US $1.7 billion per year and they refuse to pay athletes who attend the Olympics.”