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In a recent interview with OutKick, ESPN college football analyst Paul Finebaum announced that he is considering leaving his longtime role to run for Senate.
The 70-year-old said following Charlie Kirk’s assassination, he began reconsidering his priorities and got “a little bit more interest.”
“I spent four hours numb talking about things that didn’t matter to me. And it kept building throughout that weekend,” Finebaum told OutKick’s Clay Travis. “I felt very empty doing what I was doing that day.”
“It’s hard to describe, not being involved in politics, how that affected me and affected tens of millions of people all over this country. And it was an awakening.”
Finebaum would hardly be the first notable name in sports to go into politics. Most recently, Mark Teixeira announced his congressional campaign.
Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Alabama, jumped ship from the college football sidelines to Capitol Hill in 2021, and he gave as close to an endorsement for Finebaum as one could get.
“Paul is smart. He loves the country,” Tuberville said on the “War Room” podcast. “Again, been a friend of mine for a long time. I have not talked with him about it. I did an interview with him, 30 minutes, about two months ago face to face. It went well.
“I tell you, he’s got 100% name ID in Alabama. He’d have a lot of big people behind him. He would be a force in the race if he decided to get into it. But, again, I’m for people that come up here that don’t want to be in politics. They want to come up and help. I don’t support any of them. There’s no reason for me to get involved, but Paul is a good guy, a good friend.”
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In somewhat ironic fashion, Finebaum noted to OutKick that Tuberville’s seat could open given his run for Alabama governor. After getting confirmation that recently retired Bruce Pearl was not interested in Tuberville’s seat, Finebaum “started thinking about this.”
Finebaum also said he was relying on Tim Tebow in the wake of Kirk’s assassination.
“The senselessness, but also what got me more than any other thing than the most obvious — losing his life –—was his connection to young people,” Finebaum said of Kirk. “I’m on a college campus every week, and I’m always stupefied when young people come up and tell me they’re fans.
“And usually they’ll tell me, ‘I had to be subjected to your show when my parents picked me up.’ But I remember being that age when things affect you in other ways. We’re adults. We’re almost inoculated by tragedy, although not in this case. It was the young people that got to me.”
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