Ryen Russillo seems to have had enough and isn’t going to take it anymore.
Co-host of ESPN’s “Russillo and Kanell Show,” Ryen Russillo admits that since politics became so pervasive in sports talk, he no longer knows what his job is anymore. He came to his current profession because he loves to talk about sports, but that appears to be an outdated business model.
“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,” Russillo lamented during his show. “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.”
The 41-year-old from Laramie Wyoming, who has co-hosted the show since 2009, added, “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.”
Russillo found it funny that another ESPN host Dan Le Batard criticized an ESPN memo instructing hosts not to talk about Trump’s current immigration ban. Russillo said, “Like, I think the majority of everybody I work with does all the time… 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.’”
Russillo knows all too well that ESPN and other sports networks wouldn’t be keen on that idea, saying, “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.”
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