There is skill to reading a room, and not everyone is good at it. But it doesn’t take a Harvey Specter-level ability at reading people and situations (thanks, Netflix) to realize that making sexist and demeaning jokes toward a female reporter, on the air, as a member of the Washington Commanders’ flagship radio station, a week after a new ownership group came in with a mandate to clean up the toxic environment around the team, is an epically dumb idea.
And yet, here we are.
While broadcasting from Commanders training camp on Thursday, sports radio host Don Geronimo (real name Michael Sorce) called out to reporter Sharla McBride by referring to her as “Barbie girl” and later as “that chick.” He also assumed the reporter was a cheerleader instead of a woman trying to do her job for WUSA-9, the CBS affiliate in Washington. Geronimo and Young were initially told not to come back to camp, and after a quick “internal review,” iHeart Media D.C., which owns WBIG, fired Geronimo, who had recently announced a new contract that was to take him through 2026.
McBride has blond hair and is pretty, and Barbie is definitely having a moment this summer thanks to the blockbuster movie. But McBride is a career journalist who has been in the Washington market for three years and was awarded an Emmy last month for her work at WUSA. She was at Commanders camp to do her job: deliver the news of the day to viewers.
Josh Harris (L), a new owner of the Washington Commanders, delivers remarks during a news conference introducing the team’s new ownership at FedExField on July 21 in Landover, Maryland. (Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)
Washington’s new ownership group, led by Josh Harris, took over little more than a week before Geronimo’s comments. A big part of the reason the Commanders were even available to buy is because of the bravery of dozens of women who stepped forward to tell their stories, and what the NFL deemed gross mistreatment those women faced while employed in team offices during the megalomaniacal reign of Dan Snyder. Their courage led to two league-mandated outside investigations as well as the eyes of Congress. It ultimately led to Snyder’s exit from the NFL owners’ club, a group he appeared to care deeply about being part of.
With that as a backdrop, how could iHeart D.C., likely with pressure from the Commanders, not have fired him? Sending Geronimo packing was an easy win for Harris — and one that Geronimo basically gift-wrapped for them.
Some of his longtime fans are bemoaning the decision, crying that everyone is too sensitive these days because they won’t accept that being openly derisive toward a woman while on-air is unacceptable now, and really has been for years. It never should have been acceptable, but thankfully there has been some level of growth in this country that means in many corners women are expected to be treated with a basic level of respect.
This is Geronimo’s schtick, incapable of offering listeners anything more than tired, boorish “jokes.” Incapable of reading the room, he gave the new ownership group a near-immediate chance to show the team’s fans that they were different from Snyder. Just as Snyder finally had to face the music for his misdeeds, Geronimo was made to pay for his.
Harris and Co. will likely have a long honeymoon with Commanders fans simply because they are not the Snyders. Dan Snyder dragged the franchise through the mud with his litigious — and, according to the NFL’s final report on him, lascivious — ways, his nearly 25 years of ownership producing little more than chaos and negative headlines.
There are questions about how successful the Commanders will be on the field this season, but it didn’t take long for Harris to get his first win off it, one that was almost embarrassingly easy to claim.
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