I was a sports talk radio host in Ohio when new 700 WLW host Thom Brennaman made his famous hot mic slip up in 2020.
If you’re uninitiated, Brennaman was caught using a homophobic slur when he thought he was in a commercial break while broadcasting a Cincinnati Reds game against the Kansas City Royals.
The situation went mega-viral — if there is such a thing — but it was especially pertinent to my audience. The majority of sports listeners at my station would identify themselves as Cincinnati Reds fans, and Thom Brennaman, along with his father, Marty, were Reds royalty.
I wasn’t kind to Thom Brennaman in my criticism of him. In his defense, he said that using the word that he said “I can’t begin to tell you how deeply sorry I am. That is not who I am. It never has been.” My argument was that we absolutely got to see who Thom Brennaman was behind the scenes. And if that’s how he acted when he thought no one was looking, that told me all I needed to know about the man’s character.
I was wrong. And many other people who were intensely critical of him were, too.
Earlier this week, my phone rang. It was Thom Brennaman. He wanted to talk about taking over mornings from Mike McConnell at 700 WLW, the venerable Cincinnati news/talk station where Brennaman is inextricably linked.
To be truthfully, I don’t always love talking to people with a checkered past, were the subject of controversy, or had a viral moment for all the wrong reasons. You have to ask about it, even when it is uncomfortable.
But with Thom Brennaman, I didn’t have to ask about it. He freely brought it up. The self-awareness on display was staggering. He was chiefly aware of how he was perceived after his viral moment in 2020 led him to losing some lucrative opportunities in the sports broadcasting world.
It would have been insanely easy for the disgraced broadcaster to go into the media version of the witness protection program. He could have gone into hiding, finding a home in some backwoods town to never be heard from again, accepting his fate. But he didn’t.
Instead of being bitter — which, if you’re asking me, would have been the easiest emotion to feel — Thom Brennaman accepted responsibility for his actions. He took into account how what he did affected other people. By many accounts, he’s done plenty of work with members of the LGBTQIA+ community both inside and outside the sports arena. He’s adamant that he’s not the man that he was when his comments were picked up in 2020.
Now, I’m not a member of the gay community. So I can’t speak on how offensive the comments from Brennaman were. So, I’ll default to the opinions of those most affected by the situation. And they say that the new WLW host has done the work. He’s learned how hurtful his comments were, what they mean, and how they cut to the core.
I saw a letter to the editor of The Enquirer in Cincinnati that said “While Brennaman has said that he is sorry for his homophobic slur on an open mic while doing a Reds game broadcast in 2020, I believe he is only sorry that he was caught … When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.”
Truthfully, I’ve been known to use that final phrase, too. But that discounts another fact: People can change. People do change. And maybe most importantly, sometimes, people deserve a second chance. I think in the case of the new 700 WLW host, he’s earned a second chance.
The person I spoke with on the phone earlier this week was introspective, self-aware, and sorry. Not just sorry because they lost a premiere job and the status they worked so hard and sacrificed for. But someone who said something ignorant while trying to quote a classic movie and ended up offending and hurting members of the community in which he also lived.
And that, to me, is a much better judge of someone’s character than perhaps an insanely short clip of someone being caught saying the worst thing they might have ever muttered, and we just happened to catch them in the act.
Broadcasters, just like everyone else on the planet, are imperfect. It’s my view that if we don’t ever extend grace, there’s no reason for someone who’s done something wrong to ever work toward being better. I was highly critical of Thom Brennaman in 2020. And I was wrong. I judged a man from a 10-second clip, which I don’t think is ever, and ever should be, fair.
I think it’s just another example that time heals all wounds. It is easy to be caught up in the moment of thinking emotionally — or sometimes, irrationally — when you see someone caught doing something wrong. It’s easy to be sanctimonious, holier than thou, and call for someone’s head when the mob mentality gets rolling. Would I have ever come to this conclusion in 2020? No. 2021? Not likely. 2022? Who can be sure?
But in 2025, it feels borderline ridiculous to hold something against someone from so long ago, especially when they took full responsibility for their actions and did what they could to mend fences and change minds. Especially when that person has never shied about from the topic, and continues to be so self-aware that so many people will immediately identify him with the situation.
But he’s never let the moment define him. If I ever made a similar mistake, I could only hope in my wildest dreams that I would handle it with the grace, class, and accountability that he has.
So I applaud Thom Brennaman for taking the time to recognize his mistake, doing what he could to rectify it, and waiting things out. Instead of being bitter about the situation, he became a better person because of it. And I think that deserves high praise.
I also applaud those at iHeartMedia Cincinnati and 700 WLW. Instead of treating Brennaman like he was radioactive, they treated him like someone with high familiarity with the audience, and that that audience was capable of looking past something that happened nearly a half decade ago.
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Garrett Searight is Barrett Media’s News Editor, which includes writing daily news stories, features, and opinion columns. He joined Barrett Media in 2022 after a decade leading several radio brands in several formats, as well as a 5-year stint working in local television. In addition to his work with Barrett Media, he is a radio and TV play-by-play broadcaster. Reach out to him at Garrett@BarrettMedia.com.
