"I wish Maria Taylor all the success in the world — she covers football, she covers basketball," Nichols said during the call with Mendelsohn, audio portions of which were posted online by The Times.
"If you need to give her more things to do because you are feeling pressure about your crappy longtime record on diversity — which, by the way, I know personally from the female side of it — like, go for it. Just find it somewhere else. You are not going to find it from me or taking my thing away."
She also noted that the assignment to host NBA finals coverage "is in my contract in writing," the newspaper reported.
After Nichols said she planned to await ESPN's next move, Mendelsohn paused, and then said, "I don't know. I'm exhausted. Between Me Too and Black Lives Matter, I got nothing left."
Nichols then laughed in response, the tape reveals.
Mendelsohn then suggested Nichols "frame" the situation as ESPN having pitted two women, Nichols and Taylor, against each other.
"
About how it's just so very white male for them to turn two women on each other to compete over the one spot that they're dangling over them," Mendelsohn said.
"A broader conversation about all the spots that should be under consideration."
Nichols then said on the tape: "There isn't just one seat at the table for a minority of whichever version this week we're trying to please."
Mendelsohn said in response: "
If you think about it, this is precisely the problem we've been talking about for a long time, which is white men — it is an example of the one Black person in the boardroom ... You don't get to have a Black woman in a prominent spot and feel like, OK, the whole work is done."
"And you certainly don't get to say, 'OK, we have a white woman, we have a woman in a critical seat, and now that we're going to put a Black woman in that same seat," he said.
"The question is, what are the other seats that white males are in."
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/04/lebron-james-advisor-exhausted-from-me-too-black-lives-matter.html
It’s a 20 minute conversation that they cut off. It seem like his comments were taking outta context. I don’t see a reason to fire him. If you see what he said after those comments it makes sense.
