Ryen Russillo: With Trump and Politics, I Don't Know What Job of Sports Talk Host Is Anymore

Ryen Russillo finds himself grappling with the current sports talk climate, where politics are interspersed with commentary about games significantly more than any other time in recent memory. Here is a relevant transcription of where he finds himself:

"I feel like there’s so many people that I work with, that every show, every topic, every angle on it is hoping to be right about destroying the right on every single thing that comes up. And I don’t even feel like I’m taking that much of a stance other than I feel like I just — I hear it every single day. I don’t know what the job is anymore. I got into sports because I want to talk about sports, and now I feel like if I’m not doing a social awareness show three out of five days a week I feel like I’m doing it wrong. I can’t possibly think that’s the play, long-term, for what I’m supposed to do as a sports talk show host for the next 10 years."

Russillo continued:

"I don’t know what it is. If I were doing the anti-Trump show three days a week, would I have 90% support from co-workers? Because that’s what it feels like right now. I don’t know. I thought it was kind of laughable that Le Batard was saying we can’t criticize Trump. Like, I think the majority of everybody I work with does all the time. And I’m not sitting here saying, ‘Oh I wish I could criticize him.’ I don’t care. Like, I don’t care. I find myself going, ‘Man, this again today?’ Like I saw a show the other day tease that one of the hosts was upset about the travel ban. That was the tease for a show. Can you imagine if I teased this show and said, ‘Coming up, why all of you are wrong about Trump, and why he’s awesome.’"

As he concludes, that wouldn’t work out too well for him: “It’s really weird that the job now feels like you have to have a take, and it better be along the lines of so many other people in the media or you’re just gonna be uncool, you’re gonna be ostracized.”