Suddenly, NFL Media isn’t the only sports entity under fire for sexual misconduct and harassment.
In what can only be described was a shocking report from the Boston Globe‘s Jenn Abelson on Thursday, the culture at ESPN and its treatment of women tells us a disturbing story of a male-dominated workplace in which individuals of the opposite sex are shunned and downright sexually harassed.
In a lengthy investigative piece, Abelson tells us stories of multiple incidents that simply need to be read to be believed.
“Some women said that the environment at ESPN can be so hostile — and plum positions for female sports journalists so precarious — that they hid pregnancies and felt pressured to take short maternity leaves in order to protect their positions,” the report noted. “One anchor even did her scheduled broadcast while she was having a miscarriage to prove her commitment to her job, according to former employees.”
There really are no words to describe what that anchor must have been going through at the time of her broadcast. Whether the powers to be acknowledged that she was having a miscarriage isn’t the point. The fact that she had to do that in order to “prove her commitment to her job” is absolutely stunning.
And it’s apparently not without some backdrop which included an understanding that ESPN’s female employ is held to a different standard than its male employ.
“Another woman, one of the few solo female anchors on SportsCenter, said she was told her show was moving in another direction and she’d no longer have a job on it weeks before she went on maternity leave last year,” the report continued. “She is one of several who said they were given less desirable positions or laid off before, during, or after maternity leave.”
Abelson goes on to tell us a story of noted personality Jenn Sterger, who tried out for an on-air position back in 2016. As part of her audition, Sterger notes that an ESPN “executive showed her a copy of a Playboy magazine that she had modeled for and then she was taken to a strip club by Matthew Berry.”
Of course, Berry is the best known fantasy football expert on the ESPN platform. The audition was apparently for The Fantasy Show. For his part, Berry acknowledged that going to the strip club “was not a smart decision and I regret going.” Ya think?
“Some current and former employees describe a highly competitive environment where female anchors feel disposable and where their dedication is sometimes challenged by male superiors,” the report goes on to note. “That’s what colleagues say happened to Sara Walsh, the anchor who had the on-air miscarriage.”
Fearful of losing her job after SportsCenter vice president questioned her dedication, Walsh decided not to call in sick when she started to bleed from a miscarriage during an ESPN work trip to Alabama. Again, shocking.
And there’s a lot more to this amazing report from the Globe’s Jenn Abelson.
These are stories that we simply cannot continue to ignore if we want to overcome the machismo culture that has impacted the sports media world for far too long.