In a shocking turn of events, the Portland Trail Blazers have announced that they are dismissing brand new television play-by-play broadcaster Braiden Bell because of a history of offensive comments. The Blazers announced Bell’s hiring this morning. Less than eight hours later, they announced that they will “not be proceeding forward” with him.
The Blazers sent out the following message on social media:
The Portland Trail Blazers have zero tolerance for racist, sexist, or harmful
comments. Social media posts made by our recently announced play-by-play broadcaster are in clear violation of team and league policies, as well as our values and expectations. Therefore, we will not be moving forward with this broadcaster.
The play-by-play role carries a long legacy for excellence, on the broadcast and in character, and we hold that standard without exception. We did not meet our own bar in this process, and for that we apologize to Blazers fans and to Rip City. We believe strongly 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.
The social media posts were discovered by reporters at KGW TV. They were posted in 2012 and 2013, when Bell was 15 years old, but are a part of the same feed that Bell still uses for public commentary. We will not repeat the wording of the posts here. They are posted in full in the body of the KGW story through the link above. They include deprecating language about people of Asian descent and disparaging descriptions of women.
Please note that we do not tolerate racist, sexist, or other harmful language at Blazer’s Edge either, including in the comments. Please do not repeat the descriptions Mr. Bell used, even when describing his conduct in the comments section of this post. Also please use discretion and decorum when discussing or debating these developments. Offensive commentary will be removed from this post and those engaging in it are subject to warning or suspension from the site.
