Portland Trail Blazers fire former Valley sports broadcaster over old social media posts

The Portland Trail Blazers fired a former Arizona sports broadcaster on Thursday, the same day they hired him, over offensive social media posts he made as a teenager.

Hours after Portland announced that Braiden Bell was hired to be the NBA team’s television play-by-play broadcaster for the upcoming season, the Trail Blazers let him go.

In between, Portland television station KGW documented multiple misogynistic and racist posts made by Bell on Twitter, now X, in 2012 and 2013, when he was about 15 years old.

KGW said it did not find any later offensive posts by Bell, who graduated from Arizona State University and worked as a broadcaster for Sun Devil Athletics, the Phoenix Mercury of the WNBA and the Valley Suns, the Phoenix Suns’ G League affiliate.

As of Friday morning, posts on Bell’s X page were visible only to approved followers.

What did the Trail Blazers say about firing Braiden Bell

“The Portland Trail Blazers have zero tolerance for racist, sexist or harmful comments. Social media posts made by our recently announced play-by-play broadcaster are in clear violation of team and league policies, as well as our values and expectations. Therefore, we will not be moving forward with this broadcaster,” the team said in a statement.

Portland is trying to find a replacement for Kevin Calabro, the team’s voice since 2016. Calabro left the Trail Blazers in July after they offered him a “subprime” contract extension, according to The Oregonian.

The organization promised to do better in its vetting process as the search continues.

“The play-by-play role carries a long legacy of excellence, on the broadcast and in character, and we hold that standard without exception. We did not meet our own bar in this process, and for that we apologize to Blazers fans and to Rip City,” the team said in its statement, referring to Portland’s nickname.

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