Dan Le Batard hasn't been mellowed by his long tumultous fight with his former employer ESPN. Le Batard called Donald Trump an "orange, racist turd" in his first episode away from the channel on The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz.
Le Batard often bucked against the channel for his refusal to toe the company line on not addressing politics. Though it was never explicitly stated by either side, Le Batard was gradually moved away from the more visible networks by ESPN as he frequently maligned the Trump administration.
Le Batard attacked ESPN and Trump last year after encouraging a chant among his supporters that called for deporting Congressional Representative Ilhan Omar.
"It is antithetical to what we should be. And If you're not calling it abhorrent, obviously racist, dangerous rhetoric, you're complicit," he said at the time, pointing fingers at Trump and ESPN.
The network then laid off Le Batard's longtime producer, only to have the host bring him back out of his own pocket. ESPN and Le Batard came to an agreement to part ways in December, with Le Batard signing off an ESPN show for the final time this week.
“It isn’t quite the glamorous, criss-crossing, spotlight, show-business ending I imagined on a bad-lighting Zoom call during a pandemic, 2:30 in the afternoon on ESPN2, but it’s finally time for me to go, to leave ESPN after more than two decades working at the place,” Le Batard said. “And after one of the most improbable runs a TV show of any kind has ever had.”
