With the 2026 mid-term elections rapidly approaching, ESPN college football insider and aspiring Republican US Senate candidate Paul Finebaum is ‘very close’ to leaving media for politics, according to Front Office Sports.
Sources told the website Finebaum is ‘very close’ to leaving the Worldwide Leader. This comes after Finebaum previously told Fox’s conservative sports website, Outkick, he was weighing a run to replace former Auburn football coach Tommy Tuberville when the Alabama Republican vacates his Senate seat next year to run for governor.
Furthermore, sources told Front Office Sports that Finebaum is waiting for the ongoing college football season to play out before officially launching his senate bid. Finebaum previously cited the murder of 31-year-old conservative activist Charlie Kirk as a reason he could jump into politics.
‘It’s hard to describe, not being involved in politics, how that affected me and affected tens of millions of people all over this country,’ Finebaum told Outkick’s Clay Travis. ‘And it was an awakening.’
Finebaum also admitted that he felt ’empty’ doing his four-hour daily show in the wake of Kirk’s death.
‘I spent four hours numb talking about things that didn’t matter to me. And it kept building throughout that weekend,’ he said.
A self-identified Republican who voted for Donald Trump, Finebaum may run for US Senate
Finebaum, who often shares airtime with Tim Tebow (right), will reportedly run in Alabama
Paul Finebaum could run to replace former Alabama football coach Tommy Tuberville (pictured) when he vacates his senate seat in 2026 to run for governor in the state
An ESPN spokesperson declined to comment when contacted by the Daily Mail.
While ESPN personalities are generally discouraged from talking about politics publicly, Finebaum confirmed during the Outkick interview that he was a registered Republican and voted for Donald Trump.
And while he’s yet to make a final decision on his future, he admitted it would be tough to tell the President ‘no’ if he was approached by him to run for the Senate seat.
‘Impossible to tell him no. There’s no way I could. I would tell him yes,’ Finebaum said.
Nonetheless, Finebaum revealed that ‘one or two people in Washington’ had reached out to him to broach his interest in running for politics.
‘I ended up talking to someone… who made it clear that there was a desire for me to be involved. And this person… was compelling and compassionate in the approach to me, and I started thinking about this,’ Finebaum said.
Former Auburn basketball coach Bruce Pearl has also been mentioned as a potential candidate, but he told reporters following his recent retirement that he has no plans to run.
