SOROCABA, SP (FOLHAPRESS) – Due to a directive from Disney’s top management, ESPN’s broadcasts have changed in recent days. The company’s clashes with Elon Musk, owner of X, formerly known as Twitter, led to the hashtags being banned from games.
Until then, in Premier League matches in England, for example, a tag was made available to the public, who sent their messages through the social network.
However, Disney ordered that no type of publicity be given to X, formerly known as Twitter, directly or indirectly. As a result, ESPN’s talents had to adapt to the new reality.
Some ask viewers to send messages to their personal accounts, as narrator Luiz Carlos Largo did during the broadcast of Liverpool and Newcastle this Monday (1).
Other narrators go live on Instagram, as is the case with Paulo Andrade, the main announcer of the channel’s soccer games.
Last November, Disney suspended the payment of advertising to X. Musk has been the subject of controversies since he bought the social network in 2022, for allowing and even encouraging anti-Semitic comments on the site.
The situation intensified when the technology billionaire agreed with a post on X accusing Jewish people targeted by anti-Semitism during the Israel-Hamas war of trying to “impose against whites the same logic of ‘us against them’ that they complain about” and supporting the immigration of “hordes of minorities.”
“There’s a truth,” Musk replied. Jewish groups compared the statement in the original post to a belief known as the theory of replacement, a conspiracy theory that posits that non-white immigrants, organized by Jews, intend to replace whites.
Advertising represented about 90% of Twitter’s revenue before Musk bought the company. Today, that number is 70%, according to recent market estimates released by The New York Times.
Last month, X informed employees that the company was valued at US$19 billion. This was reduced from the US$44 billion that Musk paid.
