SEC football icon Paul Finebaum faces GOP criticism amid talk of Senate run

Legendary football broadcaster Paul Finebaum is under fire over claims he is a soft-spoken “Trump-hating” Republican amid widespread rumors he plans to run for president. United States Senate in Alabama.

The 70-year-old ESPN host, known as the premier authority on SEC football, has not officially announced his run. However, he revealed that he was fascinated by the idea of ​​such a race and admitted as much in an interview with OutKick To “think about it constantly.”

For some Republican insiders in Alabama, this was enough to start raising alarms about why they thought Finebaum would be a bad choice for president. Senate candidate.

Dale Jackson, a prominent political radio talk show host in Alabama, told Fox News Digital that although “Feinbaum is a radio legend and a fixture in the South… no one knows what he believes.”

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ESPN radio and television personality Paul Finebaum prepares to speak on television near activities outside the Superdome, before the College Football Playoff national championship game in New Orleans Monday, Jan. 13, 2020. (Ken Ruinard/Staff via Imagen Content Services, LLC)

“The man is a legend,” Jackson continued. “[But] I’ve been doing radio and talk radio for nearly 20 years in Alabama, and I couldn’t tell you what Paul Finebaum knows or believes about anything political.

“The minute he starts talking about what he believes in, it’s going to be taken apart, and I don’t know if he’s necessarily prepared for what that means,” Jackson said.

Finebaum’s record on policy positions is mixed. In 2016, he said: “This country does not oppress black people,” but then apologized on ESPN, saying: “His eyes are open wider,” according to what the British newspaper “Daily Mail” quoted him as saying. Clear policy.

In 2017, the president noted this Donald Trump “Act like a child” per FanBuzz.

In 2020, Finebaum scored praise for a video in which Nick Saban encouraged social distancing and wearing masks due to the coronavirus, according to 247Sports. He also spoke favorably about Saban’s decision to lead an athlete social justice march in which several players wore Black Lives Matter jerseys, according to a local outlet. Baham now.

“Nick Saban leading that rally was one of his finest moments,” Finebaum told the outlet.

“The video was very powerful. There was a lot of negative reaction. I called Alabama fans and they told me they would never support the team again. We all hear the same arguments about Black Lives Matter,” Finebaum continued. “I say that because he did it without making a political statement. He didn’t overdo it, he did it quietly. He was supporting his players, and that’s the most important thing to me. That’s what a coach is supposed to do, and I think that speaks very well about him to me. In a state like Alabama, it’s not like he was doing that at Michigan, but he didn’t let that get to him.”

However, Finebaum told OutKick that Vote for Trump in 2024 And it was the murder of Charlie Kirk that prompted him to seriously consider running for Senate.

“It’s hard to describe, not being involved in politics, how it affected me and tens of millions of people across this country. It was an awakening,” Finebaum said of Kirk’s assassination.

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Senator Tommy Tuberville, Republican of Alabama, arrives for the Senate GOP luncheon at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. on April 2, 2025 (Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Finebaum also said in the interview that if Trump told him, “Paul, you’re my man,” he would find it “impossible to say no to him.”

“There’s no way I can do that,” he said. “I’ll tell him yes.”

If he enters the race, Finebaum will run to replace another football star, Senator Tommy Tubervillewho famously led Auburn University to an undefeated season that culminated in an SEC championship in 2004. Tuberville, who has been an outspoken conservative voice in the Senate since his election in 2021, is seeking governor of Alabama in 2026.

Others have already announced Senate race in Alabama They include state Attorney General Steve Marshall and Alabama Republican Rep. Barry Moore.

Jackson said that although Tuberville had a prior record of political stances, he saw Finebaum as an “unknown entity.”

“Finebaum is basically like I’m famous. I’m a big radio guy, and people like me. Why can’t I be a senator? That’s just kind of weird,” Jackson said.

When contacted for comment, Finebaum told Fox News Digital: “I’ll come back when I have something substantive to say.”

For his part, Tuberville praised Finebaum.

“Paul is smart. He loves the country,” Tuberville said on The New York Times. “War room” Podcast. “Again, you’ve been a friend of mine for a long time. I haven’t talked to him about it. I had a 30-minute interview with him, about two months ago, face to face. It went well.”

“I’m telling you, he’s got a 100 percent ID in Alabama. He’s going to have a lot of great guys behind him. He’s going to be a force in the race if he decides to get into it. … Paul’s a good guy, a good friend.”

Meanwhile, some voices were more critical of the prospect of a Finebaum campaign. “You can’t hate President Trump and Republican voters and win the GOP primary,” a national Republican strategist working on U.S. Senate races told Fox News Digital.

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Paul Finebaum and Tim Tebow take a selfie on the set of SEC Nation before the game between the Mississippi State Bulldogs and Arkansas Razorbacks on October 8, 2022 at Wade Davis Stadium in Starkville, Mississippi. (Michael Wade/Sportswire Icon via Getty Images)

“Paul Finebaum has attacked President Trump, promoted authoritarian cover-ups during the coronavirus outbreak, and declared his support for the Black Lives Matter movement,” the strategist said, adding that Finebaum’s “experience as a sports analyst does not seem to translate to analysis of his political prospects.” This Trump-hating Rhino [Republican-in-name-only] “His chance of winning the Republican primary in Alabama is almost zero.”

Former state Rep. Ed Henry, who served as co-chairman of Donald Trump’s 2016 Alabama campaign, told Fox News Digital that when he heard Finebaum was considering a run for Senate, “I laughed, because I thought, ‘Oh great, we have another person in this race who gives in every time he’s pressured.'”

Henry added, “I think he’s a great man. He’s said some good things. But when the pressure is too much, he breaks, he collapses, and that’s not what we need.”

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What Alabama needs, the former actor said, is “someone who has been through fire, been tested, and found to be true to their word.”