Former ESPN “First Take” moderator Cari Champion said she felt limited in her role on the popular sports debate show.
During an appearance on the “I Am Athlete” podcast this week, Champion talked about the time she was on the show alongside Skip Bayless and Stephen A. Smith. Champion said ESPN interviewed her, Jemele Hill and “mostly blonde women” for the moderator role.
“I went into the audition knowing they already wanted a blonde, because this is Monday through Friday on a popular show, you’re not going to hire a black girl — especially not a brown-skinned black girl,” Champion said. “You’re not hiring me. That’s how I went in.”
Champion said she killed the audition but didn’t believe she’d get the job. ESPN then told her to be ready for the role by football season.
Champion didn’t know Smith and Bayless before working alongside the two on the show. She thought their interactions on the show were “a lot of bluster” but soon discovered they were expressing their real opinions — “they’re exactly who they are,” she said.
“What comes with people who are really talented — I say this, this is no cap, super talented. They worked hard. They taught me work ethic. We would work 6-7 days a week. We’d cover the Super Bowl, take two days off, fly somewhere. … It was brutal, back and forth, flying across the country. They worked hard and they did the homework. They came prepared. No one was unprepared.”
But Champion felt the show didn’t let her know she mattered.
“The problem was, for me as a black woman in that position, and at the time — you can do the research — no one was Monday through Friday on a popular two-hour TV show that was a black woman,” Champion continued. “And they let me know I didn’t matter. Intentionally, unintentionally. It was obvious. It was just like, ‘you don’t matter Just be happy that you’re here. Ask questions. Don’t talk. Be happy that you’re here.’”
A show moderator role brings high visibility to national sports tv shows but they have limited space to express opinion. For “First Take,” it was often just a position that set up the takes from Bayless and Smith.
Champion eventually moved on from “First Take” in 2015 and joined ESPN’s “SportsCenter” as an anchor. She left the network in February 2020.
– Aron Yohannes