Clay Travis - Republicans Buy Sneakers Too: How the Left Is Ruining Sports with Politics

SHOULD I PUT THE HOUSE ON THE MARKET?

Lara Travis, via text to me on September 15, 2017

Every husband knows its never a good sign when your wife texts you from inside the house.

Yet thats the text I received from my wife moments after CNN had ended a live interview with me where I said I believed in only two things completelythe First Amendment and boobs.

Id gone on CNN from the third-floor office in my home to talk the intersection of sports and politics, specifically the statement by ESPNs Jemele Hill that Donald Trump was a white supremacist who had surrounded himself with other white supremacists.

Id nestled into the chair in my home outside Nashville, Tennessee, a city Id been born and raised in, turned on the camera and connected to the CNN studio in Atlanta, and stared into the camera to share my opinions. It was the third straight day Id been on CNN or CNN Headline News. As part of that discussion on a Friday afternoon in September, Id expressed my love for the First Amendment and boobsa phrase Ive been using for years that was, to me, more gripping than just saying I was a First Amendment absolutistand the female host, Brooke Baldwin, reacted with pearl-clutching indignation.

How dare I, a man, have the temerity to appear on CNN and say I liked the First Amendment and boobs? When Id refused to apologize for what Id said, shed abruptly ended the interview, igniting an immediate media firestorm.

The firestorm didnt bother me, I absolutely love being in the middle of media firestorms, its where Im most content, but my wife wasnt happy with me.

As every husband knows, when momma aint happy, aint nobody happy.

Moments before Id done the CNN interview, Id told my wife that our busy week was almost over. When I finished the CNN and Fox News hitswe were taping Fox News for a Saturday showwe could take our three boys, ages nine, seven, and three, out for pizza and relax before the weekends college football and NFL games. Id even told her that things were going spectacularly well with Outkick and that our surging ratings on radio and online readership might lead to a White House invite before long.

My wife, whom I met in our first year at Vanderbilt Law School, had voted for Hillary Clinton and wasnt that excited about visiting the Donald Trump White House. However, Id been arguing with her that whether you voted for the president or not you had an obligation to go to the White House if you were invited to go there.

I thought Id been making some headway.

Now I had to trudge downstairs from my upstairs office where I worked all day, to talk to her. When I arrived downstairs, she was not happy with me: I think youre going to get fired, she said.

This has been my wifes fear for over a decade, that my insistence on saying exactly what I believe and not tempering my opinions to avoid offending anyone in our perpetually offended society, was going to eventually get me fired.

That the online mob was going to line up, put me squarely in their sights, and before everything was done, Id be unemployed. I had partly protected myself, due to her fears, by founding my own company, Outkick the Coverage, and creating a burgeoning sports media empire predicated on total and complete creative freedom. What I sold to my audience every day was four things: that I was going to be smart, original, funny, and authentic.

Since the companys founding in 2011and many years before that evenId found myself in the center of many media firestorms.

But this was going to be a different level of attention than ever before.

Im not going to get fired, I told her. This is the best thing thats ever happened for my career. The people who love me will love me that much more, and the people who hate me will hate me that much more. All of that is great for what I do; love and hate are just two sides of the same coin. The CNN host overreacted, and I didnt do anything wrong.

She rolled her eyes.

Why didnt you apologize? she asked.

For liking boobs and the First Amendment?

What are you going to tell our boys?

Im not going to have to tell them anything. Theyre going to like boobs too; its biology.

She rolled her eyes again.

Look, I said, theres nothing to worry about. CNN has already invited me back on their shows for Monday. (This was true, in the immediate aftermath of my appearance on the show, CNN had left me a phone message inviting me back on their network on Monday.)

My phone, which had been blowing up with reactions from friends, family, and coworkers for the past twenty minutes, buzzed anew.

It was my boss at Fox Sports Radio.

Were getting some pressure to fire you from the radio show, he texted. Call me.

Whats that? my wife asked.

My friends like boobs too, I said.

But I left her and went back upstairs to my office.

Ive been fired a bunch of times before. The first time I got fired was in college when I didnt show up for work on Sunday at Abercrombie & Fitch because I went to a Denver Broncos and Washington Redskins game instead. I was fired from the first congressional campaign I worked on, as Democratic congressman Jim Coopers driver and body man, because I wrecked the congressmans wifes Volvo sedan, and then took a trip to New York City without giving proper notice.

At the website Deadspin, where Id been hired as an editor, Id quit over not having complete creative control over the articles under my name. At the sports website FanHouse, back in 2011, they shut down the entire website, and I suddenly didnt have a writing job. That one really stung because I had a contract extension on my bosss desk and Id convinced my wife, who lived in perpetual fear that I was going to be fired at any moment, that we were close to having it made.

At long last, I was going to be paid at least $100,000 a year to write about sports.

Boom, it was right there and then, double boom, I was unemployed and fired with two months of severance from a $40,000-a-year writing job and two young kids to take care of.

When youve been fired before, youre always prepared to be fired again.

Even still, the irony wasnt lost on me. Was I really going to be fired from my national radio show for saying I loved the First Amendment and boobs? Had the country gone so insane that admitting you liked boobs, in conjunction with the First Amendment, was now unacceptable to say on television?

I picked up the phone and dialed my boss at Fox Sports Radio. Okay, he said, its not good.

My name is Clay Travis and I make a living writing and talking about sports. I never really thought I would make a living doing this, but back in 2004 I started writing online about sports while I was a practicing attorney in the United States Virgin Islands, and my audience, which at the time was literally zero, just kept growing.

Over the ensuing fourteen years, Id produced millions of words of written content, a couple of books, and Id found out I was pretty good at sports talk radio and TV. So as I sit here writing this book at the age of thirty-eight, Ive written a couple of books, graduated from Vanderbilt law school, also added a second graduate degree from Vanderbilt University in creative writing, hosted the top-ranked local radio show in the country in Nashville, Tennessee, and now hostat least for the moment, anywayone of the most listened-to national sports talk-radio shows in the entire country, which airs each morning, Monday through Friday, on nearly three hundred affiliates nationwide in all fifty states and on satellite radio from 6 to 9 a.m. eastern.

Oh, and I also hosted my own TV show on FS1 a couple of years ago.

Along the way, I also managed to marry a former Tennessee Titans cheerleader I met in law school, father three sons, and found a website, OutkicktheCoverage.com, which millions of people now read, watch, or listen to each month. If youre not familiar with the phrase outkick the coverage, it has a dual meaning. In football its when a punter kicks the ball too far for his special teams unit to cover the kick, allowing a favorable return. In life, its when a man ends up with a woman who is far too good-looking for him.