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ESPN paid $85m to air Aaron Rodgers’ conspiracy theories | Aaron Rodgers

The broadcaster gave the quarterback free rein to spread misinformation on The Pat McAfee Show. And then he started taking aim at the network itself

He touted alternative treatments for Covid, questioned the safety of vaccines, maligned the US’s pandemic response czar Anthony Fauci as “one of the biggest spreaders of misinformation” (ignoring his own efforts) and recommended viewers read a takedown tome on the doctor by Robert F Kennedy Jr, a noted conspiracy theorist. That ESPN would allow one of the NFL’s most prominent faces to go full QAnon for the better part of a half hour – peppering the daytime schedule with f-bombs that the censor in charge of the bleeper missed – would seem a marked departure for a network that once harshly punished employees for not sticking to sports at all times. So it was no surprise that when Jets beat reporters asked him during Monday’s exit interview what the team needed to avoid another sub-.500 finish next season, many fans rolled their eyes when Rodgers said “flush the bullshit” and eliminate “anything in this building that we’re doing individually or collectively that has nothing to do with real winning.”

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