Why are any of us in the sports media business? We became fans of something—a team, a sport, maybe even a uniform—at a young age. As we got older, we didn’t outgrow that love. It grew with us to the point where being a fan is at the very core of what we do. That’s why I was a little taken aback by Kirk Herbstreit and his recent appearance on the Net Positive podcast, where he took a swipe at ESPN colleagues who show their allegiances on air.
Herbstreit choosing to single out Elle Duncan was particularly galling. We’ll get into why in a moment.
It doesn’t say anything good about Herbstreit, but it’s not the key issue. The audience is smart. Many of them feel like a fan and wish they had our jobs. It’s an undeniable reality. However, Herbstreit showed that he has a fundamental misunderstanding of where ESPN and other broadcast outlets are and what matters to their audience in the modern day.
The World Is Smaller Now
Dan Patrick has talked a lot in the past about consciously giving up his love of the Cincinnati Reds when he began covering sports professionally. It was the ’80s. It was how business was done at the time.
It was a time before ESPN was ESPN and before social media was even a concept. The media was a monolith that existed in a separate world in the eyes of most Americans.
In 2025, every sports media brand and star, including Herbstreit, is on social media. In fact, it’s where most people are getting their news—sports and otherwise. The talent share details of their personal lives all the time. They share opinions on events outside of their regular beat all the time. If the audience has constant access to a broadcaster’s thoughts, they probably already know who the broadcaster roots for in each sport.
Herbstreit himself is a good example of this. I know, thanks to Twitter, that he is a Reds fan. I know his dog’s name. I know when his previous dog died. I know a lot about Kirk Herbstreit because Kirk Herbstreit, like so many others, is too online. I don’t just forget all that stuff when he shows up on my TV.
Fandom Is Fun and Fun Matters
In 2025, ESPN has been building its image with a combination of sports and fun for a little over three decades. I don’t think the network or any of its employees originated the idea that everything is content, but everything in Bristol seems to be executed with that idea in mind.
Alternate broadcasts, unique camera angles, celebrity guests visiting the booth—they all exist in the name of making things more fun. And that’s during the games! That is what Herbstreit told Net Positive host John Crist was most sacred—the purity of the games. Is a stoned Eminem showing up in the broadcast booth to drool and promote his new album really less offensive than Elle Duncan acknowledging that she is a Georgia fan?
That’s just the games, though. I know Herbstreit said that is where it is most important to be neutral, but can we talk for a minute about the show he is on every single Saturday?
College GameDay is built on fandom. There’s a reason the show originates from a college campus instead of a studio. Only on a campus can you convince a bunch of 20-somethings that getting up at 4 a.m. to wait in line for a place to stand for the next eight hours is cool. Those kids do it though, and College GameDay is better for it!
The show also routinely acknowledges its hosts’ biases. Desmond Howard getting booed at Tennessee or Ohio State has become standard fare. A whole episode last year was dedicated to what Indiana meant to Lee Corso. Nick Saban’s accomplishments took center stage last year when the show originated from Tuscaloosa in September.
Fandom makes this whole thing—not just College GameDay, not just ESPN, but sports media—work!
Herbstreit Singling Out Elle Duncan Is Wrong
That first GameDay with Nick Saban back in Tuscaloosa included Herbstreit himself saying, “How cool is it to see Coach (Saban) a fan?” Every week he sits at the dais with Pat McAfee, who made a big show on air of giving $1 million to the NIL collective at West Virginia, where he played college football, and served as a hype man for the Indiana Pacers during their playoff run this year.
Why did Elle Duncan in particular draw Kirk Herbstreit’s ire?
I think the answer is simple. He probably figures that the Venn diagram of his audience and Duncan’s audience are two perfect circles that never touch. He took a swipe at her because he could—with no consequences.
Herbstreit was careful to note that there is an exception for people like McAfee and Stephen A. Smith. I don’t think he really believes that there is anything written in stone for guys like that. I think he knows that singling out McAfee’s daily three hours of Colts propaganda or Stephen A. Smith’s New York Knicks pep talks would come with pushback. Neither of those guys could get Herbstreit fired, probably, but ESPN clearly holds those two in different esteem.
I’d also note that if this is a SportsCenter thing, Scott Van Pelt was right there. If Herbstreit thinks the show is some kind of institution of professionalism, isn’t SVP’s slobbering over Maryland a bigger problem? Herbstreit could also have pointed out Kevin Negandhi. He sits next to Duncan on every edition of SportsCenter she does. Negandhi is as outspoken about the Eagles as Duncan is about UGA.
I am not calling Kirk Herbstreit a misogynist. For all I know, he has a personal problem with Elle Duncan, but brother, this doesn’t look great. If showing allegiance on SportsCenter is really his problem, there are higher-profile targets that should be in his sights.
For her part, Duncan fired back on Twitter, noting that all she has ever done to show she is a Georgia fan on air is bark. It’s silly, but it’s not unprofessional.
As an SEC fan myself, it tells me that she’s the real deal. McAfee leads sing-alongs on College GameDay. That’s tourist stuff. Duncan is one of us. She earned her bona fides, in my eyes, with her reaction to Tua Tagovailoa’s game-winning touchdown pass in the 2018 CFP National Championship Game.
I don’t think Kirk Herbstreit is a bad guy. I just think this position is silly. Fandom is good. Fandom makes what we do possible.
It’s 2025. The ’90s ideals of professionalism are dead. That doesn’t mean no one is a professional anymore. It just means that “you’re unprofessional” is an insult that rings hollow. Professionalism is a spectrum in a business where everyone is a personality. Each person’s place on it is based on individualized expectations.
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Demetri Ravanos is a former columnist and editor for Barrett Media. He is the creator of The Sports Podcast Festival, and a previous host of the Chewing Clock and Media Noise podcasts. He occasionally fills in on stations across the Carolinas in addition to hosting Panthers and College Football podcasts. His radio resume includes stops at WAVH and WZEW in Mobile, AL, WBPT in Birmingham, AL and WBBB, WPTK and WDNC in Raleigh, NC.
You can find him on Twitter @DemetriRavanos or reach him by email at DemetriTheGreek@gmail.com.
