Sage Steele, a former anchor for sports channel ESPN, has said that she was instructed by the network to stop commenting on social media about controversial transgender swimmer Lia Thomas.
Ms. Steele, who revealed in mid-August that she’d decided to leave ESPN, made the remarks during a recent episode of Outkick’s “Gaines for Girls” podcast with former National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) swimmer-turned-women’s sports advocate Riley Gaines.
“I was asked to stop tweeting about it,” she said. “I was asked to stop doing anything, saying anything about it on social media, because I was offending others at the company.”
The longtime anchor added that she refused to be silent about transgender athletes competing in women’s sports such as Mr. Thomas, a male swimmer who identifies as female and won the NCAA Division I women’s swimming championship. “I made sure I sent off another tweet that night after I received that email. Because, like no, let’s stop living in this lie.”
Ms. Steele went on to say that ESPN allowed others working for the company to speak about topics not related to sports, while she and her colleague, Sam Ponder, were asked to stop speaking.
“You’re going to … silence me and Sam? She was told the same thing, you know, for this issue. But they were going to let everybody else talk about all these other things that are not even related to sports on our sports programming,” Ms. Steele said.
“I’m like, no, no, no, no, no. If we’re gonna preach on ESPN, and all of these things, then I’m gonna stand up for all these women—many of whom are afraid to do what Riley Gaines is doing, to do what I’m doing, at a much lesser level than Riley,” she added.
ESPN did not return a request for comment on Ms. Steele’s allegations by press time.
Punished for Criticizing COVID Vaccine Mandate
Ms. Steele was suspended in 2021 after she criticized the sports channel during an appearance on former NFL quarterback Jay Cutler’s podcast “Uncut” for the directive and COVID-19 vaccine mandate they gave her.
She later filed a lawsuit against ESPN.
According to the lawsuit, she said that while she respected everyone’s decision about whether or not to get the COVID-19 vaccine, a corporate mandate was “scary to me in many ways.”
Ms. Steele also pointed out that she did not want to get the COVID-19 vaccine, but did so to keep her job.
In June, ESPN offered to settle the lawsuit for just over $500,000 plus attorneys fees and costs.
After successfully settling her case with ESPN/Disney, Ms. Steele said in a post on X on Aug. 15 that she left the network so she could exercise her First Amendment rights “more freely.”
“I am grateful for so many wonderful experiences over the past 16 years and am excited for my next chapter!” she wrote.
Meanwhile, ESPN spokesman Josh Krulewitz said in a statement at the time that the network and Ms. Steele mutually agreed to part ways.
“We thank her for her many contributions over the years,” the statement read.
Bryan Freedman, Ms. Steele’s attorney, said that although her client fully complied with ESPN’s policies, she was “punished for speaking her truth in violation of freedom of speech protections under Connecticut law and the U.S. constitution.”
“ESPN violated her free speech rights, retaliated against her, reprimanded her, scapegoated her, allowed the media and her peers to excoriate her, and forced her to apologize simply because her personal opinions did not align with Disney’s corporate philosophy of the moment,” Mr. Freedman said.
“Sage is standing up to corporate America to ensure employees don’t get their rights trampled on or their opinions silenced,” he added.
