On Friday, a video of ESPN’s Monica McNutt doing a live SportsCenter hit from a nail salon went viral on X.
The clip took off after a post chided the basketball analyst for appearing while getting a pedicure, prompting many others to criticize her and the modern state of ESPN.
McNutt has become something of a boogeyman (boogeywoman?) in recent years among certain critics for her analysis of Caitlin Clark and the narratives surrounding the Indiana Fever superstar and the WNBA in general. A clip like this, featuring a Black woman in a position of high visibility performing an activity traditionally seen as feminine at a time when she’s on the job, was red meat for those critics and the X platform itself. The takeaway for many was that McNutt was “unserious” and “out of touch,” with an unspoken notion that she was violating some preexisting code that a man would never violate.
The thing is, when you look at what many other ESPN reporter and talent have been doing in recent years during their live TV appearances, there isn’t anything all that unique about it.
It should also be noted that ESPN seemed to love the appearance enough to promote it themselves.
When it comes to ESPN personalities appearing on its airwaves for so-called professional appearances, the nail salon isn’t all that crazier than Adam Schefter breaking news from the passenger seat of his car or the back of a cab, as he’s done many times.
It’s certainly no different from a live TV appearance from a golf cart.
If there’s a discussion that needs to be had on ESPN airwaves and Brian Windhorst is in a hotel room, that’s where he’s gonna go live from.
Ultimately, there are two takeaways.
One, while there may have been a time when ESPN (and other networks) would have demanded that talent always be present in a professional setting during appearances, those days are over. Thanks to cost-cutting, the internet, and the post-pandemic world, TV appearances in non-traditional settings are all too common. Not to mention, they usually tend to lead to a fun story or interaction.
Two, that this clip went viral at the same time we learned ESPN is moving away from “embrace debate” to “embrace authenticity” doesn’t seem coincidental. If you read the comments from ESPN exec Mike Foss’s town hall earlier this week, there’s a desire from inside Bristol to strip away the veneer of contrivance and curated conversation and showcase its talent as the people they are. It’s what makes Pat McAfee so popular. It’s what makes Charles Barkley and Shaquille O’Neal’s interactions on Inside the NBA so fun. And it’s why the company has moved on from people like Skip Bayless (for the most part).
Monica McNutt appearing on SportsCenter to provide basketball analysis mid-pedicure is what ESPN wants. Maybe not all the time, but so long as McNutt can perform the job, they’ve made the calculation that it doesn’t really matter if she’s in the studio or the salon.
