Mike Missanelli loses 6abc gig over remarks about female ESPN announcer
Missanelli has been dismissed from "Sports Sunday" after comments he made about broadcaster Beth Mowins.
Mike Missanelli has been dismissed from his weekly appearance on 6abc after saying it was "unnatural" for a female broadcaster to call an NFL game.
On his 97.5 the Fanatic radio program Thursday afternoon, Missanelli admitted he was fired from his weekly spot on 6abc's Sports Sunday after questioning why ESPN had Beth Mowins do play-by-play on an NFL game. Missanelli hosted the show with 6abc sports anchor-reporter Jamie Apody. Crossing Broad was the first to report Missanelli's comments.
"Now I have nobody to blame but myself," Missanelli said, citing the fact that 6abc is owned by Disney, which also owns ESPN. "Did I think it was a harsh result? Yeah, I do think it was a harsh result."
6abc declined to comment.
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Mowins became the first female broadcaster in 30 years to call a regular season NFL game when she provided play-by-play to the nightcap of ESPN's Monday Night Football opening-week double-header alongside former Jets and Bills head coach Rex Ryan.
The following Tuesday, Missanelli questioned why ESPN felt the need to have a female call a football game.
"I don't know why the sporting world needs a female play-by-play person on an NFL game," Missanelli complained, assuming that because Mowins is a woman, she didn't grow up playing football.
"Do you think Sean McDonough ever played a down of football in his life?" producer Andrew Salciunas responded, referring to ESPN's main Monday Night Football play-by-play announcer.
"Sean McDonough as a guy is more in-tuned with football than a woman would be, in my opinion," Missanelli said, admitting he didn't catch a lot of the game and didn't know if she was any good.
"It just to me sounds unnatural for her to be calling the NFL," Missanelli said.
The news of Missanelli's dismissal came after Carolina Panthers quarterback Cam Newton was forced to apologize for a response to a question asked by Charlotte Observer beat reporter Jourdan Rodrigue. Dannon, the maker of Oikos yogurt, dropped Newton as its pitchman after the comments were widely criticized.
"After careful thought, I understand my word choice was extremely degrading and disrespectful to women, and to be honest that was not my intention," Newton said in a video posted to Twitter Thursday evening. "I've learned a valuable lesson from this. And to the young people who see this, I hope you learn something from this as well. Don't be like me, be better than me."
Missanelli played an audio clip of Newton's comments Thursday and took various positions throughout his show, at one point calling it "wrong" and at another appearing to want to defend the Panthers quarterback.
"He answered [her]. It wasn't like he was ridiculing the question," Missanelli said and sighed before returning to the subject of his dismissal one final time.
"Jemele Hill didn't get fired [by ESPN]. I got popped. And there's the irony," Missanelli said before asking Salciunas, "Would you say I might be the most politically correct guy on the planet?"