Sage Steele calls on sports leagues to respond to Charlie Kirk murder the way they did ‘career criminal’ George Floyd

Former sports anchor and conservative figure Sage Steele called out sports leagues following the assassination of Charlie Kirk, urging them to respond to it in the same way they did the murder of George Floyd.

“Dear pro sports leagues: Looking forward to seeing you release statements & send condolences to Charlie Kirk’s family after he was murdered for his political beliefs,” the 52-year-old former ESPN host wrote on X. She added, “You know – kinda like you did when career criminal George Floyd died.”

Steele specifically called out the NFL, NBA, WNBA, MLB, and NHL, and shouted out the New York Yankees for “holding a moment of silence” for Kirk during their Thursday night game.

Steele’s sports anchor career ended in 2021 after she left ESPN amid a lawsuit over her suspension for comments she made about COVID-19 vaccine mandates and the racial identity of former President Barack Obama.

Kirk, a 31-year-old MAGA influencer who founded the conservative youth nonprofit organization Turning Point USA, was killed after being shot in the neck on Wednesday during a college tour stop at Utah Valley University. Kirk was an influential voice in the conservative political world, relished in political debate, and often shared controversial views about race, women, and the LGBTQ+ community.

Steele’s mention of Floyd as it relates to Kirk is notable, as Kirk expressed strong views about Floyd’s 2020 murder at the hands of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who pressed his knee on Floyd’s neck for over 9 minutes before he went into cardiac arrest. Floyd’s murder sparked worldwide Black Lives Matter protests against police brutality and racial bias, along with a strong conservative pushback against corporate denunciations of racism and their commitments to racial justice.

“Our whole country blew up because of this incident, and it was largely based on a lie,” said Kirk, who claimed that Floyd died of an overdose and not the actions of Chauvin, despite the Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office declaring his death a homicide as a result of “cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law enforcement subdual, restraint, and neck compression.”

“The lie is that there was a white police officer that went after a Black person just because he was Black, and it just wasn’t true. He was resisting arrest,” Kirk said on a college campus.

Floyd’s murder garnered responses from the sports world, particularly from NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, who said “we were wrong” for not listening to players in years past who protested at games to bring attention to the issue of police brutality and racial discrimination.

“Without Black players, there would be no National Football League and the protests around the country are emblematic of the centuries of silence, inequality and oppression of Black players, coaches, fans and staff,” said Goodell.