A weekly guest on an ESPN show potentially defamed one of the stars of the ABC weeknight lineup. The fight between Aaron Rodgers and Jimmy Kimmel has played out publicly. Surely, things are being said privately.
ESPN is not ready to go public with private conversations about Rodgers’s role on Pat McAfee’s show.
Via A.J. Perez of FrontOfficeSports.com, ESPN declined comment in response to the question of whether it’s examining Rodgers’s seven-figure relationship with McAfee.
Kimmel, who has threatened to sue Rodgers for suggesting Kimmel might appear on the notorious Jeffrey Epstein client list, isn’t happy. He shouldn’t be. It’s one thing to deal with potential defamation from a stranger. This is coming from within the House of Mouse; ESPN and ABC are commonly owned by Disney.
Kimmel undoubtedly has complained to Disney about Rodgers saying what he said on a Disney-owned platform. It’s fair for him to do so. It’s a bad look for someone on an ESPN show to say inflammatory things about someone on an ABC show.
If/when ESPN is sold by Disney, that’ll be different. For now, they’re all part of one big family that, as it relates to this specific issue, is dysfunctional.
How it plays out might shed light on who currently occupies a higher spot in the broader Disney orbit, Kimmel or McAfee. And the perceived disrespect that flows from whoever gets the short straw could have longer-term consequences.