Sage Steele Ousted From ‘NBA Countdown’ For Her Conservative Views

There’s no question she’s been controversial.

Sage Steele, a veteran basketball analyst at ESPN, went on Instagram in January to complain about large crowds protesting President Trump’s travel ban. “So THIS is why thousands of us dragged luggage nearly 2 miles to get to LAX, but still missed our flights,” she captioned a photo of a protesters at Angeles International Airport. And she ripped NFL players like Colin Kaepernick who kneel during the national anthem. Then she abruptly ended an interview with a musician after he launched into a political diatribe following last year’s celebrity All-Star game.

Then there’s ESPN, which has — for some reason — decided to go political. Just yesterday, the sports network issued a new set of guidelines “recognize[ing] connection between sports, politics.” “We are living in unique political times…which explains the revised guidelines for discussion of political and social issues,” ESPN public editor Jim Brady said. Of course, the network skews liberal and despises President Trump.

So it should come as little surprise that ESPN has fired Steele. She will be replaced by Michelle Beadle as host of “NBA Countdown” on both ESPN and ABC, the networks announced Tuesday.

Steele, who is biracial, doesn’t mince words. And as a Christian, she’s come under fire for her views on race, as she did during a Christian forum in Tampa in February, where she shared some surprising tales about racism.

“The worst racism that I have received [as a biracial woman married to a white man], and I mean thousands and thousands over the years, is from black people, who in my mind thought would be the most accepting because there has been that experience,” she said during a conference on race. “But even as recent as the last couple of weeks, the words that I have had thrown at me I can’t repeat here, and it’s 99 percent from people with my skin color.”

Case in point: The Root, a black publication, posted a story headlined: “Twitter Rejoices After Learning ESPN Analyst Sage Steele Is Out.”

Steele hasn’t been one of black America’s favorite people since she took African-American men to task for protesting the killings of unarmed African-American men, women and children. And let’s not forget that time people protested the Muslim ban and Steele was super annoyed, and not because the ban was totally xenophobic and fucked up; she was mad because she was going to miss her flight….

RIP, Sage Steele, wherever you are, because no one watches SportsCenter on the Road. May your presence on social media dwarf back to nothingness; or maybe, just maybe, you can move over to Fox News, where your commentary belongs.