{"id":897901,"date":"2026-10-28T20:06:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-28T20:06:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/897901\/"},"modified":"2026-10-28T20:06:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-28T20:06:12","slug":"kirk-herbstreit-headlined-gop-fundraiser-weeks-after-claiming-he-doesnt-get-into-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/897901\/","title":{"rendered":"Kirk Herbstreit headlined GOP fundraiser weeks after claiming he doesn’t ‘get into politics’"},"content":{"rendered":"

College GameDay came under heavy scrutiny last month after the weekly college football roadshow hosted Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)<\/a> for a discussion of\u00a0the Protect College Sports Act (PCSA), legislation he sponsored, without offering any perspective from critics of the bill.<\/p>\n

The interview, conducted by host Rece Davis, more or less resembled an infomercial for the bill rather than a balanced analysis of what impact the legislation would have on college sports. Later, it was revealed that ESPN lobbied for the legislation, and Awful Announcing exclusively reported<\/a> that the network\u2019s chairman, Jimmy Pitaro, participated in calls with the bill\u2019s architect, Texas Tech megabooster Cody Campbell, to advocate for changes to the legislation that would benefit ESPN.<\/p>\n

Suffice it to say, the criticism against ESPN and\u00a0College GameDay\u2018s coverage of the bill came fast and furious. But in the immediate aftermath,\u00a0GameDay star Kirk Herbstreit, who did not participate in the Cruz interview, feigned ignorance about Cruz\u2019s political orientation<\/a>, as well as U.S. politics broadly speaking.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t really get into politics. I\u2019m kind of an independent guy, right down the middle of the fairway. I\u2019m for America,\u201d Herbstreit told reporters the week following the highly criticized interview. \u201cSo whoever helps us as a country, I\u2019m for. Whether that\u2019s somebody on the left, somebody on the right. So I don\u2019t really follow it. I don\u2019t know anything about [Cruz\u2019s] political views; I don\u2019t know what he\u2019s for or against. I care about football and my family and my faith and my country. Those are things that I love. So I don\u2019t really pick sides. And I was surprised. I didn\u2019t know what his deal was. So him being booed, I had to ask people, \u2018What\u2019s going on here?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

ESPN\u2019s Kirk Herbstreit comments on Ted Cruz\u2019s controversial appearance on \u201cCollege GameDay.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cruz appeared as a guest speaker on Sept. 12, where he promoted The Protect College Sports Act. The promotion drew criticism \u2014 with viewers pointing to a lack of an opposing viewpoint. https:\/\/t.co\/19bAiKiRFb<\/p>\n

\u2014 Mississippi Today (@MSTODAYnews) September 18, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n

A number of observers immediately called out some inconsistencies in Herbstreit\u2019s comments. People pointed to previous social media posts he made about Cruz during the 2016 Republican primary, where he wrote he did not \u201clike the vibe of Cruz,\u201d adding, \u201ctoo much BS.\u201d Some also pointed to accounts Herbstreit follows on X, including several prominent right-wing voices like Kash Patel, Megyn Kelly, and Tomi Lahren, as evidence that he does, in fact, have an eye towards American politics.<\/p>\n

But perhaps the most damning evidence yet to contradict Herbstreit\u2019s assertion that he doesn\u2019t \u201cget into politics\u201d was reported by David Covucci in his FOIAball newsletter<\/a> on Wednesday. Per Covucci, Herbstreit recently \u201cheadlined the signature fundraising dinner for the second-biggest PAC in Alabama, which funneled $155,000 to [Republican Senator] Tommy Tuberville\u2019s [gubernatorial] campaign the very next day.\u201d<\/p>\n

The event, held on Oct. 21, raised funds for the Business Council of Alabama\u2019s political action committee, Progress PAC. Covucci reports that since 2024, Progress PAC has given $2.6 million to Republican candidates in Alabama and $260,000 to Democrats in the same period. Covucci also indicates that the vast majority of Democrats Progress PAC supports run unopposed.<\/p>\n

Sponsorships for the event Herbstreit served as the keynote for ran up to $50,000, with \u201cbig-ticket donors\u201d participating in a roundtable with Herbstreit. Covucci says that between Sept. 1 and Oct. 19, 22 donations to Progress PAC \u201cmatched the sponsorship levels\u201d listed for Herbstreit\u2019s event, totaling $410,000.<\/p>\n

The Business Council of Alabama has been very outward in its support of Tommy Tuberville\u2019s gubernatorial campaign, launching a \u201cCoach Means Business\u201d initiative, creating a website, and purchasing billboards for the sitting senator.<\/p>\n

Covucci\u2019s report implies that even a baseline level of awareness would have ensured Herbstreit knew he was speaking at an event supporting conservative candidates in Alabama.<\/p>\n

Of course, this wouldn\u2019t be the first time that Herbstreit has seemingly deceived the public with comments designed to get him out of sticky situations. Remember last year when he bizarrely claimed it was his son, not him, posting on the X account that bears his name? It didn\u2019t take much to debunk that one<\/a>. Similarly here, it\u2019s quite clear that Herbstreit is at least somewhat engaged in U.S. politics; he just doesn\u2019t want to admit it for whatever reason.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"College GameDay came under heavy scrutiny last month after the weekly college football roadshow hosted Sen. Ted Cruz…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":897902,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[3143,399,125597,398,396,397,99],"class_list":["post-897901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-football","tag-college-gameday","tag-football","tag-kirk-herbstreit","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-football","tag-ncaafootball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/897901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=897901"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/897901\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/897902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=897901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=897901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=897901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}