Thom Brennaman's national broadcasting return praised

One of the key discussions around Thom Brennaman’s exit from the national broadcasting stage in 2020 was about the reaction of the LGBTQ+ community. That exit came after Brennaman was caught making a homophobic slur on a hot mic on a Cincinnati Reds’ local broadcast. And it led to him losing his national NFL job with Fox and resigning his local job with the Reds.

But Sunday saw the news that Brennaman will return to a national stage this fall, calling college football games for The CW. And one notable supporter of that news is Cyd Ziegler, co-founder of LGBTQ+ sports news site Outsports (which Q.Digital acquired from Vox Media/SB Nation earlier this year ).

On that front, Ziegler was quoted in Andrew Marchand’s piece at The Athletic announcing this news. There, he said “I pumped my fist in the air and said, ‘Finally!’ Somebody gave this guy a chance that he deserved. I’m so proud of The CW.” But Ziegler also wrote a full Outsports piece on this , and it’s well worth a look. Here are a couple selected quotes from it:

Andrew Marchand of The Athletic reports that Brennaman will be The CW’s “lead voice” for its ACC football broadcasts.

I couldn’t be happier about it.

…With all of that, he said something shocking to me one afternoon on the phone about a year ago.

“I’m OK with what’s happened,” he said. “Don’t get me wrong. I hate how much I hurt some people. I’ve lost so many nights of sleep over that, I can’t even count that many sheep.

“But if it hadn’t happened, I would have never learned about what the LGBTQ community goes through. Some of my neighbors. I would have stayed pretty blind to it. And I never would have gotten the chance to help.”

Every word in there might not be placed perfectly — I wasn’t recording the conversation — but that’s what he said.

How could anyone think this man should never work again?

There are larger angles to consider here. There are many, many broadcasters who have publicly embarrassed themselves and their companies over the years. That hasn’t often been to the degree Brennaman did, and there are some further discussions to be had around him (including his initial self-professed ignorance of the damage his comments had).

But Ziegler’s note on the work that Brennaman has done in terms of learning about what the LGBTQ+ community has dealt with is well-taken, and it’s worth noting that the length of Brennaman’s exile from national roles (he has had some smaller local roles since 2020) is remarkable compared to what we’ve often seen in the announcing world.

Ziegler’s comments should of course not be taken as an endorsement from an entire community. They’re an endorsement from one particular person. But his remarks here are notable, as is his discussion of what Brennaman has done since 2020. We’ll see what Brennaman does with this second chance he’s long been advocating for, but it is certainly significant to see this kind of piece in praise of him from a figure like Ziegler.

[ Outsports ]

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