In the aftermath of the Charlottesville protests, ESPN found themselves in an interesting situation: They have the Virginia vs. William & Mary college football game on September 2nd, and the sportscaster assigned to the game was . . . ROBERT LEE.
To be clear, it isn't Robert E. Lee, the Confederate general whose statue was the center of the Charlottesville protest. He died back in 1870.
Robert Lee is an Asian-American sportscaster who's been with ESPN for a couple years now. ESPN didn't drop the guy . . . they just moved him to another game. And they say it was a mutual decision.
Clearly, they were trying to avoid negative press. In fact, the network says they were concerned that Robert himself would bear the brunt of it . . . and since it was a total coincidence, they thought they could dodge it by switching things up.
But that did NOT happen. Since word got out, ESPN has been roasted on social media. It's pretty ridiculous if you think about it . . . the worst that probably would've happened would've been some innocuous jokes on Twitter, and some 'clever' memes. So, it's hard to understand what the heck ESPN was thinking.