Paul Finebaum's Bosses Wouldn't Let Him Do ESPN's 'College GameDay'
Yesterday at 05:28 PM
The Mouth of the South was almost the mouth of college football.
During a recent media appearance, ESPN superstar college football personality Paul Finebaum revealed he wanted to become a regular on one of the network's most popular shows.
On the latest episode of the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast, host Jimmy Traina asked Finebaum if he ever wanted to become a part of ESPN's College GameDay. Before SEC Network officially kicked off, College GameDay producer Lee Fitting asked Finebaum if he'd be interested.
"I said, 'Yes!' So he tried me out one week, I ended up doing it the entire season and he wanted me to become a regular the next year," Finebaum told Traina, via Awful Announcing.
But there was a problem. Finebaum was hired by SEC Network to run a Saturday morning show, which takes place at the same time as GameDay.
"The only problem was I was the very first person hired by the SEC Network. And one of the main things I was hired for in addition to the show I do in the afternoon was for the Saturday morning SEC Nation show," Finebaum said. "I can tell you now, it became a bit of a tussle between Fitting and my bosses at the SEC Network. And they would not let me do GameDay…I can assure you I wasn't happy about the decision."
A beloved personality in college football, Finebaum was devastated by the decision.
"There's nothing like doing GameDay," Finebaum explained. "I've never been in a rock band, but it's the closest thing to being in one. I think Fitting tried the second year with Nick Khan alongside. But the people where I work would not let me go…by the time my contract came up for renewal, it just wasn't worth it. GameDay had changed."
However, he made it clear he wasn't willing to fight too much given just how much he was being valued by SEC Network.
"You couldn't fight too hard because it made it look like you were not valuing where you were," Finebaum said. "It was just not worth going to war since I agreed to the deal to be on SEC Nation and they had already promoted it, it had been marketed and it would have looked bad for the show for me to say, 'I'm moving on.'"
Should Finebaum get a place on GameDay?
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