WASHINGTON \u2014 The Washington Nationals have let go of a community relations executive, sources told The Athletic on Friday, three days after a conservative group posted a hidden camera conversation in which the employee discussed internal deliberations about everything from an alleged social media ban on a Catholic pitcher to relationships with defense contractors and the organization\u2019s efforts to placate President Trump.<\/p>\n
The video, which racked up 4 million views on X since it was posted Tuesday, appeared to capture former Nationals director of community relations Sean Hudson talking in a public setting with an undercover \u201ccitizen journalist\u201d from the O\u2019Keefe Media Group.<\/p>\n
The group was founded by James O\u2019Keefe, who had also founded Project Veritas before leaving the company<\/a> in February 2023. Project Veritas has been known to\u00a0use deceptive techniques<\/a> to record videos secretly\u00a0and has, in the past, been\u00a0accused of selective editing<\/a>.<\/p>\n Hudson did not respond to multiple attempts to reach him for comment via phone calls and messages sent to his social media accounts, some of which have since been deleted.<\/p>\n During Friday\u2019s pre-game show on Nationals.TV, president of business operations Jason Sinnarajah acknowledged that Hudson was no longer employed by the team, though he did not call him out by name.<\/p>\n Sinnarajah denied several specific points made by Hudson in the video, including that the organization is anti-Catholic, that it tracks people\u2019s search history and that it hides players from social media. <\/p>\n Sinnarajah also apologized to Nationals pitcher Trevor Williams. In the video, Hudson had said the team avoided using Williams in certain team social media content after the pitcher \u2014 a devout Catholic \u2014 condemned the Los Angeles Dodgers for hosting the Sisterhood of Perpetual Indulgence at their stadium in 2023. Some Catholic groups have criticized the organization for satirizing and mocking the religion with provocative costumes.<\/p>\n \u201cWe feel awful that he has been dragged into this situation, and hope this hasn\u2019t been a distraction as he gets ready to get back on the field, which we\u2019re excited to have him back on,\u201d Sinnarajah said. \u201cTrevor\u2019s a valued member of the organization, we\u2019ve been proud to support him both on and off the field, including recognizing him last year as our Roberto Clemente award honoree.\u201d<\/p>\n Earlier this week, a spokesperson for the Nationals said the team had issued no such directive regarding Williams, noting that the pitcher is currently injured and has been featured in posts over the past couple of seasons. Hudson is also not on the Nationals\u2019 social team. <\/p>\n Williams declined to comment to The Athletic.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, according to multiple reports on Friday, Republican congresswoman Lauren Boebert of Colorado urged the Department of Justice to investigate alleged religious discrimination against Nationals players.<\/p>\n Among other comments, Hudson referred to the players as \u201cnine silly men in costumes,\u201d and he appeared to divulge information about the team\u2019s position on several sensitive issues. However, they largely fell outside of his job description.<\/p>\n At one point, Hudson appeared to say that the Nationals have invited U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth to games, hoping that his meetings with defense contractors at Nationals Park would lead to them becoming corporate partners.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are trying to use baseball to make money,\u201d Hudson said. \u201cAnd a lot of that is defense contracts, the Palantirs of the world. We are essentially like, \u2018Look at all the Americana hoorah stuff you can do at Nats Park. Give us $2 million.\u2019\u2009\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIf we piss off Trump too much, he could slash the sports and entertainment budget for D.C.,\u201d he continued. \u201cAnd then maybe there\u2019s a critical safety enhancement that we want to make to the ballpark \u2014 using facial recognition to detect people who are on the no-fly list \u2014 maybe those are people we want to avoid coming to the ballpark, and we won\u2019t have the money to do it, and something bad happens.\u201d<\/p>\n While detailing the team\u2019s financial goals, Hudson said that fans who come to Nationals Park and accept cookies on their devices are providing the organization with valuable data. This is standard practice for teams and corporations.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is someone on our team who is responsible for figuring out everything about you and assigning you into a bucket of people,\u201d Hudson said. \u201cIf you\u2019re accepting cookies, we\u2019re getting a plethora of your Google history.\u201d<\/p>\n In a statement sent to The Athletic on Tuesday, the Nationals said they \u201care aware of comments made by an employee which were recorded without the employee\u2019s knowledge and disseminated without his permission.<\/p>\n \u201cThe statements are not only factually incorrect, but do not reflect the views, opinions or actions of the Washington Nationals. The Nationals are dedicated to creating a welcoming and inclusive environment for our players, fans and staff, and we vehemently deny any allegations to the contrary.\u201d<\/p>\n It is not the first time that a pro sports team has fired an employee in the wake of one of the group\u2019s videos.<\/p>\n In 2024, the Washington Commanders dismissed an employee after a similar hidden-camera video showed him making disparaging comments about fans, players and NFL commissioner Roger Goodell.<\/p>\n Hudson had also worked as the team\u2019s director of military affairs and interacted with players at various military appreciation events. According to his LinkedIn page, Hudson has been in his role with the Nationals since August 2023 and is an Air Force veteran. He deleted his X account shortly after the video was posted to social media.<\/p>\n Washington entered Friday\u2019s game against the San Diego Padres as one of the sport\u2019s biggest feel-good stories. Despite coming into the season with limited external expectations under first-year manager Blake Butera and first-year president of baseball operations Paul Toboni, the team has produced the top offense in MLB.<\/p>\n This is the latest into a season they have been over .500 since July 1, 2021.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON \u2014 The Washington Nationals have let go of a community relations executive, sources told The Athletic on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":676826,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,462,82,575,3968],"class_list":["post-702595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-mlb","tag-sports","tag-sports-business","tag-washington-nationals"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/702595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=702595"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/702595\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/676826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=702595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=702595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=702595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}