A new report from Katie Strang and Andrew Marchand of The Athletic states that former ESPN producer Lee Fitting was dismissed from the company due to allegations of misconduct.
According to the report, Fitting "made comments objectifying women, criticized their physical appearance, and made crude jokes, some sexual in nature." A complaint was filed against Fitting in 2023. He was dismissed from the company in August 2023.
Fitting had been with ESPN for over 25 years and most notably produced ESPN College GameDay.
From The Athletic:
Around 2012, some ESPN employees were watching the NCAA’s men’s basketball tournament from a conference room in Bristol when Fitting allegedly commented on a woman (who was not present and didn’t work at ESPN) and her ability to “open her throat” to down a beer, then joked that the woman would be good at performing fellatio, according to one person present. (The Athletic also spoke to a former ESPN employee who the person present told about the alleged comment.) Fitting, via his spokesperson, said this incident never happened.
In a production meeting around 2014, no chairs were available for a woman on staff. Fitting patted his lap and said to her: “I’ve got a seat right here for you,” according to one person in the room and another person who was told about the remark from another individual present. Fitting denied this allegation. One female ESPN employee said that Fitting sent her a text message around 2018 that read: “You look hot.” She showed the text to a producer, who recalled the woman’s hand shaking as she showed the producer the message.
On more than one occasion, he jokingly asked a female staffer for her hotel room number and also routinely joked about performing bed checks, according to “College GameDay” employees. Fitting denied those allegations. He also allegedly bragged about his and his wife’s robust sex life, according to multiple sources.
When he saw a woman in an outfit he liked, he’d let her know, sometimes in ways women and other employees found crude and/or humiliating. He once loudly exclaimed “Goddamn!” when a woman appeared on set in a skirt he liked. These types of comments were so frequent that one female “College GameDay” employee developed a strategy to blunt his behavior. Whenever he would say or do something inappropriate, she would open up a notebook and mimic writing something down. When Fitting would ask what she was doing, she’d respond: “Just jotting this down for the book.”
Many women who worked on “College GameDay” and under Fitting elsewhere at ESPN said they felt pressured to go out for drinks and tolerate the inappropriate remarks, worried that if they did not present as members of the boys’ club they’d be ostracized. Sometimes, before or after saying something crude or sexist, Fitting would use a phrase — “It’s OK, she’s one of the guys” — to justify why his remark was permissible, sources said. When one female employee left the show, Fitting dismissed her as “no fun” in front of a group of employees, according to one person present.
Some women who appeared on-camera were told by Fitting how to style their hair, how much makeup to wear, what outfits he approved of or did not like. He sometimes referenced aspects of their body that he advised them to conceal.
One woman said that one day, when she and Fitting were working in different locations, he had seen her on an in-house feed and texted her that he liked her hair in a ponytail. She brushed off the comment, but he texted again: “Put your hair up in a ponytail.” The woman replied that she had already been in hair and makeup for the day, to which she said Fitting responded: “Put your hair up in a ponytail before I do it for you.” (Fitting denied saying that he would put her hair up if she did not.)
Another woman said Fitting, in addition to commenting on her makeup and wardrobe, told her she should refrain from laughing on air because he found her laugh annoying. (The Athletic spoke with a person she later told about that exchange.)
“You already have these things in the back of your mind. And then when somebody doesn’t think you can advance in your career because you don’t check a box, that awareness can become an insecurity,” one woman said.
Fitting, via his spokesperson, said it was his job to provide feedback to male and female on-air talent regarding their appearance and on-air delivery.
Fitting commented so frequently on how women looked that judging women in that way became engrained in how he operated the show. In the production truck, he would direct people to scan the crowd for “hot” women who could be shown on the broadcast, according to multiple people who worked with him. In 2012, “College GameDay” was in South Bend, Ind., for an October game between Notre Dame and Stanford. Fitting had an issue with the crowd shot behind the studio set: The Notre Dame cheerleaders in the shot were not attractive enough. They were no Oregon cheerleaders, he remarked. (Fitting had a particular fondness for the Oregon cheerleaders, multiple people said, citing comments he made about them that spanned years). As Fitting ordered the Irish cheerleaders cut from the shot, no one batted an eye.
Another ESPN employee said she asked to meet with Fitting to discuss career opportunities on three occasions. Each time he asked her to meet with him for drinks, she said. She declined, as she said other women at ESPN told her not to meet with Fitting alone outside of work. Said another female staffer: “Women had warned each other to be conscious of interactions with him.” Fitting said through his spokesperson that it was common for him to get drinks with men and women as part of his job.
Fitting was hired by WWE to produce WWE Raw and WWE SmackDown in January 2024.
Fitting, via spokesperson to The Athletic, denied some of the allegations made against him while choosing not to address others. He declined to comment on the broader characterization of him as someone who mistreated women during his tenure at ESPN or why he was let go by the network.
A WWE spokesperson told The Athletic the company had no comment on the allegations against Fitting.
WWE is named in an active lawsuit filed by former employee Janel Grant, who accused Vince McMahon of sexual assault and sex trafficking.
