How is this any different than Stephen A. Smith saying he might run for president?
Last week, longtime ESPN college football analyst Paul Finebaum announced during an interview with Clay Travis on OutKick that he may be interested in running for the United States Senate seat being vacated by former Auburn football coach Tommy Tuberville.
According to Finebaum, he recently moved back to Alabama, and would run as a Republican if he decided to throw his hat into the ring:
“I’ve never said this before, but why am I going to hold this back? I just moved and registered in Alabama, but I am a registered Republican in North Carolina as of this hour. And I was a registered Republican in Alabama before I moved.”
The filing deadline in Alabama is January 26, 2026, so the often-controversial analyst has some time to decide whether he wants to enter politics. But he may have more free time than he expected…
According to Travis, ESPN and parent company Disney have removed Finebaum from their shows after he announced that he was interested in running for the Senate seat as a Republican:
ESPN Vice President Bill Hofheimer, however, denied the report that Finebaum had been sidelined:
Other outlets, though, have independently confirmed Travis’ report, including On3 Sports and AL.com (Alabama’s largest newspaper).
Finebaum did not appear on SportsCenter yesterday for his regular Sunday morning recap, and also reportedly missed a scheduled appearance on Get Up on Thursday, though he did appear on the ESPN-owned SEC Network on Saturday.
As Travis points out, Finebaum isn’t the first ESPN personality to flirt with the idea of entering politics. Stephen A. Smith has mentioned the possibility of someday running for president as a Democrat, and the network didn’t take any action or reduce his role after he made the announcement.
Naturally, that led to a lot of speculation that it was Finebaum revealing that he was a Republican (and that he voted for Donald Trump) as the reason for ESPN and Disney reducing or eliminating his role on their network, especially amidst the controversy with another Disney-owned network, ABC, and their suspension of Jimmy Kimmel last month.
Finebaum isn’t the only potential candidate for the Senate seat from the sports world. Auburn basketball coach Bruce Pearl had previously expressed interest in running for the seat after Tuberville announced that he would be leaving the Senate to run for governor. But Pearl later announced that he would not be entering the race, which is when Finebaum became interested:
“I was hesitant at first because I was very aware of Bruce’s interest, and huge fan of Bruce, and I thought he would have a tremendous voice. So I was very cautious, I didn’t take it too seriously. And then ultimately I ended up talking to someone who made it clear that there was a desire for me to be involved. And this person, obviously that shall remain nameless, was compelling and compassionate in the approach to me, and I started thinking about it.”
He also revealed that the assassination of Charlie Kirk was his motivation for even thinking about getting involved in politics:
“I spent four hours numb talking about things that didn’t matter to me. And it kept building throughout that weekend. I felt very empty doing what I was doing that day.”
It remains to be seen what Finebaum’s role will be with ESPN going forward, or whether the network will try to save face by reinstating him now that it’s been made public that he was removed after the interview with Travis. But it’s not really surprising that ESPN and Disney would try to silence him after he “came out” as a Republican.
