Virginia State Police wore body armor and used riot shields in Charlottesville on Saturday. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
ESPN’s “Mike & Mike” led off Monday’s show with commentary on the violence that erupted in Charlottesville over the weekend and even appeared to criticize President Trump’s muted response.
In remarks on Saturday, Trump declined to single out white supremacists who assembled to protest the removal of a Confederate statue and seemed to draw a moral equivalence between them and a group of counterprotesters. (After widespread criticism, Trump on Monday made a statement more explicitly condemning the KKK, neo-Nazis and white supremacists.)
“We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides,” Trump said in his initial statement Saturday. “On many sides.”
Without naming the president, “Mike & Mike” co-host Mike Greenberg said this on Monday: “There are two sides. There is right, and there is wrong. That’s it. And there are no other ways, as far as I’m concerned, to look at it, justify it, and there shouldn’t be any reason not to say so.”
If you are a sports junkie, you probably recognize the significance of Greenberg’s remarks. If you are not, allow me to explain.
“Mike & Mike” is ESPN’s flagship radio program, a juggernaut media franchise that also airs daily on ESPN2 and which owes some of its success to remaining staunchly apolitical. While other ESPN radio personalities such as Dan Le Batard and Bomani Jones (and, of course, Colin Cowherd before his 2015 departure for Fox) often tackle hot-button social issues, Greenberg and longtime partner Mike Golic generally avoid them or offer nuanced takes that are unlikely to offend anyone.
It’s a strategy that helps make “Mike & Mike” an advertiser’s dream — an entertaining, popular program that can be counted on not to create controversy.
Speaking to Golic, Greenberg noted on the air Monday that it is unusual for the show to deviate from sports.
“Today is the first time in as long as I can remember [that] I walked in, and I said to you, ‘What are we doing?'” he said. “‘What is the appropriate way for a show like ours that has tried over the years to be a respite from the storm, if you will, to handle something about which we feel as passionately as we do this?’”
Greenberg is preparing to launch a solo morning show on ESPN television January; Golic will continue to host the radio program with a new partner, network veteran Trey Wingo. In a June interview with the Sporting News, Greenberg talked about the importance of “creating a partnership between your advertisers and your program.”
One of the things I learned on radio is that’s a big part of the job. … There’s no reason to pretend otherwise. That’s part of the business. And doing [it] in a way that feels unobtrusive but is also on brand and significant for them. I believe that if there’s one thing I know how to do better than anything, it’s that. I’ve been criticized for a million things over the years, as we all have. But the one that makes me laugh the hardest is when people say I read the commercials. Well, that’s my job. That’s the job. I’m going to take that mentality with me. We have to do the best show we can. And we have to make sure that it’s working for our advertising partners.
Keeping advertisers happy is something Greenberg clearly thinks about a lot. That he would wade into the Charlottesville story and deliver a thinly-veiled criticism of the president is an indicator of just how important the weekend’s events were, and shows how much less controversial it would have been for Trump to have disavowed the white supremacists from the beginning.