Disney appoints new president of ESPN as struggling network and US sports face spotlight over treatment of women

Having rocked the entertainment industry, it seems that Me Too is coming to sports, and not before time.

Adrienne Lawrence, a former ESPN employee, has filed an explosive lawsuit tabling lurid allegations of sexual misconduct against the network.

Reports of its contents landed just as Disney had appointed a new President of the “wordwide leader in sports” in the form James Pitaro, a digital guru who had been the chairman of its consumer products and interactive division.

“As a passionate and lifelong sports fan, I am honored to be joining the ESPN team during such a pivotal time in its storied history,” Mr. Pitaro said in a press release while hailing the “great opportunity for ESPN”.

Depending on how this goes, it isn’t just the opportunities for the future that the network’s new boss will be grappling with. It is its past.

Questions about that past were first raised by an investigative report that the Boston Globe published in December. It alleged an “entrenched locker room culture” leading to the creation of a “hostile work environment” in which women hid pregnancies and felt pressured to limit their maternity leave among other things.

That report referenced a complaint made by Ms Lawrence to the Connecticut Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities, made public to allow her to sue in a US federal court. The lawsuit is the next stage in the process.

Her claims, it should be stressed, are just allegations, which ESPN has denied and said it will fight vigorously. It should also be noted that presenter Jemele Hill has refuted claims made by the lawsuit that former ESPN host, and one time face of the network, Chris Berman had left a racially abusive voicemail for her.

open image in gallery

Ms Hill, a forthright and outspoken personality who has squared up to no less than Donald Trump, admitted to a personal conflict with Mr Berman but described the way it had been characterised as “dangerously inaccurate”.

All this comes at a difficult time for Disney, which is trying to wrap up a takeover of much of Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox, including Britain’s Sky.

Mr Murdoch has been battling to take full control of the latter prior to the Disney deal, of which it is is a key part. That process has been complicated by a counter proposal from Disney’s US rival Comcast.

There is, needless to say, a great deal of interest in the future of ownership of what is a hugely important company on this side of the Atlantic.

A wider issue for the sports industry more generally is the backdrop of scandal over the treatment of women working in it that the lawsuit has been filed against.

The NFL Network in December suspended three analysts “pending an investigation” into alleged sexual harassment. More recently the Dallas Mavericks basketball team, owned by the high profile and outspoken billionaire Mark Cuban, has been rocked by scandal in the wake of a Sports Illustrated expose alleging a “corrosive workplace culture”.

Mr Cuban has denied knowledge, fired staff members connected to the affair, and hired a third party to handle complaints.

Faced with all this Disney could have got on the front foot by, you know, hiring a woman to run its network.

One would imagine it would have cultivated the requisite talent. It certainly ought to have, and such a move would have sent a genuinely progressive message.

But it didn’t. It hired Mr Pitaro, whose in tray will be positively bulging with issues that go beyond earnings and revenues and business strategy.