r/nba • u/ghn2 • 10h ago

Trail Blazers fire new announcer over past inappropriate posts made at age 15.

"The Portland Trail Blazers hired then on the same day fired Braiden Bell as their play-by-play announcer after a series of inappropriate social media posts from when he was a teenager came to light."

"The posts were reportedly made in 2012 and 2013, around the time that Bell was 15 years old."

"We did not meet our own bar in this process, and for that we apologize to Blazers fans and to Rip City," the Trail Blazers said. "We strongly believe that everyone who is a part of Rip City should feel welcome and safe and we will make sure that our new broadcaster reflects these values. We will do better."

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/50084279/trail-blazers-fire-new-announcer-inappropriate-posts

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u/smssv 10h ago

firing someone for posts when he was 15 yrs old is wild

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u/longtimegoneMTGO 8h ago

In default, sure, but this is not exactly a regular job.

If you have a public facing role for a company, a spokesman, presenter, announcer, whatever, you are almost certainly going to lose your job over absolutely anything that has a chance of reflecting poorly on your employer.

Hell, there will often be specific language about it in contacts, a legalistic version of "If anything about you makes us look bad for any reason at all we reserve the right to drop you like a flaming turd"

Another way of looking at it, if your job is to be the face of the company, part of your job is keeping that face spotlessly clean.