ESPN Rehires Singer Previously Fired For Comparing Obama To Hitler
The country musician also called Obama and Biden “the enemy”
For more than two decades, fans of Monday Night Football were greeted with Hank Williams Sr.’s less talented son, Hank Williams Jr., singing “Are you ready for some football,” (aka “All My Rowdy Friends Are Coming Over Tonight”), at the the start of each broadcast. But, after Barack Obama was elected, Williams Jr. started saying moronic things and it went south for him.
Williams went on Fox and Friends one morning in October of 2011. He told the hosts that Obama and John Boehner meeting on the golf course was like “Hitler playing golf with Netanyahu.” That comment left the Fox and Friends hosts dumbfounded. They asked the country singer for clarification. And he yelled that Obama and Joe Biden were the enemy and “The Three Stooges.”
ESPN dropped Williams three days later, and Monday Night Football has gone without that theme for six years. Now the network has decided to rehire him to perform the song once again this season, with one executive telling The Tennessean that people will be really excited to have Williams and the song back.
Back in 2011, when ESPN fired Williams, the network released a statement that said, “We have decided to part ways with Hank Williams Jr. We appreciate his contributions over the past years. The success of Monday Night Football has always been about the games, and that will continue.” Their tune has apparently changed.
When asked if the network was worried about a backlash to their reversal, Stephanie Druley, ESPN’s senior vice president of events and studio production, said, “I’m sure there’ll be some, but I’m not concerned.”