ESPN analyst Paul Finebaum, who has spent much of his broadcast career opining on Alabama football, said he’s seriously pondering a bid to fill the state’s U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Tommy Tuberville (R). Tuberville, the former Auburn football coach, has launched a 2026 campaign for governor.
Finebaum said his decision would be clinched if President Donald Trump asked him to do it.
“Impossible to tell him no,” Finebaum told Clay Travis of the conservative OutKick site on Monday. “There’s no way I could. I would tell him yes.”
In the interview, Finebaum basically came out as a Republican who voted for Trump in 2024 despite saying that ESPN has told him to keep a lid on politics, including his ballot preference.
Finebaum is an Alabama institution. He worked as a newspaper reporter in Birmingham and moved on to hosting a popular radio show that got ESPN to bring him aboard in 2013. He now hosts “The Paul Finebaum Show” on ESPN radio and appears on multiple platforms, including the SEC Network, for the sports channel.
