When the top of a significant sports activities group is caught on video slapping his spouse a number of occasions, his profession must be in jeopardy. However aside from a number of days of remarkably delicate criticism, Final Combating Championship President Dana White seems to be avoiding any actual skilled penalties.

Final week, TMZ launched a video that reveals White in a heated argument along with his spouse, Anne, at a nightclub in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, on New 12 months’s Eve. Within the video, White approaches his visibly distraught spouse, who strikes him within the face. White then retaliates by slapping her twice, and the 2 briefly tussle earlier than she storms away.

White subsequently expressed embarrassment whereas additionally downplaying the significance of the incident. “Individuals are going to have opinions on this, and most of their opinions can be proper,” White informed the celebrity-news web site. “You don’t put your palms on a girl—ever. My spouse and I clearly love one another. We’ve been collectively for a really very long time. We’ve identified one another since we had been little or no, and this was simply a type of unlucky conditions.” White’s spouse additionally launched an announcement to TMZ blaming alcohol for the rationale their confrontation turned bodily. “Sadly, we had been each consuming an excessive amount of on New 12 months’s Eve and issues bought uncontrolled, on each side,” she mentioned.

Learn: The time period home violence is a failure

There are many examples of athletes and different sports activities figures going through some repercussions when credibly accused of home violence: intense public scrutiny, suspension, lack of revenue or, in excessive instances, their employment.

However curiously, for the reason that video’s launch, White has not been topic to an avalanche of media protection or nonstop discussions about whether or not he must be fired, fined, or in any other case. His habits hasn’t been condemned by UFC’s mother or father firm, Endeavor, or UFC’s largest tv associate, ESPN, which reached a five-year, $1.5 billion broadcast-rights deal in 2018 to air mixed-martial-arts occasions after which, in 2019, prolonged the association to make ESPN the game’s unique pay-per-view supplier.

These main stakeholders within the UFC are greatest positioned to carry White accountable, however they don’t appear notably motivated to get entangled. Endeavor isn’t commenting, and neither is ESPN. The truth is, once I requested remark, a spokesperson declined to elaborate on community officers’ protection selections and as an alternative emailed me a number of clips showcasing ESPN’s information protection of White throughout the community’s digital, tv, radio, and podcasting platforms.

The difficulty isn’t that ESPN has ignored White’s scenario fully. It’s simply that the protection of the incident has general been fairly smooth. Having labored at ESPN for 12 years, I do know intimately the distinction between cursory protection and a nonstop nationwide dialog fueled by the large sports-media machine. The newest instance of the latter is the Brooklyn Nets star Kyrie Irving, who turned a each day fixture in ESPN’s information protection and commentary after he was suspended for posting a hyperlink on his social media to an anti-Semitic movie. (Full disclosure: I left the community a number of years in the past amid a dispute with its high administration—a matter that I and others have written about extensively.)

Jemele Hill: What does Kyrie Irving see in anti-Semitic conspiracy theories?

The ESPN author and editor Jeff Wagenheim basically confirmed my commentary that the community is deliberately going simple on White. Wagenheim tweeted, “We’ve been informed to not write something incendiary on social media concerning the Dana White scenario, and I perceive why and have abided by that. I simply ask y’all to know that a few of us at ESPN do not need as smooth a take as this on home violence.”

Wagenheim backpedaled barely in a follow-up tweet however didn’t fully retreat from his unique level. “Clarification: There was no edict from ESPN bosses relating to the White scenario,” Wagenheim wrote, “however typically we’re strongly discouraged from incendiary posts on social media, and with a enterprise associate issues are delicate. My unhealthy on the wording. (The thought that follows nonetheless stands.)”

Given ESPN’s large monetary stake in UFC’s success, Wagenheim’s revelation is hardly stunning. As a result of ESPN is a enterprise associate of just about each main sports activities league within the nation—the NFL, the NBA, faculty sports activities, {and professional} soccer, amongst others—the community’s journalists face a troublesome balancing act when main gamers of these leagues behave inappropriately.

However enterprise ties aren’t the one relationships which have compromised ESPN’s protection of White. On Wednesday, the ESPN hosts Molly Qerim and Stephen A. Smith mentioned White on First Take, one of many community’s hottest and outstanding sports-debate reveals. Qerim and Smith had been particularly gracious to White, whom they each admitted they’re pleasant with.

“I simply want the perfect for him and his household,” Smith mentioned. “He is aware of how mistaken he was to do that. He is aware of that we’re on this. He knew forward of time, as a result of I reached out to him to let him know I’d be speaking about this this morning. He is aware of that he crossed a line that he has by no means crossed earlier than and that he swears he won’t ever cross once more. And he’s extremely ashamed of himself. That’s simply the place we’re proper now.”

Qerim added, “By way of it being an remoted incident, I’ve identified Dana since I used to be 22. I’ve the utmost respect for him. I don’t choose individuals by their worst second.”

To be truthful, Smith and Qerim each acknowledged their private relationship with White, and each agreed that he must be punished. However how may a viewer not wonder if their dialog about White would have been as nuanced and delicate if it had been about somebody they didn’t know? Neither acknowledged that in 2011, White’s personal mom accused him of treating girls poorly.

In lots of analogous conditions, athletes—particularly Black athletes—haven’t been supplied the identical grace and assist that White is receiving. (The UFC president is white.) They often face harsher responses. The Baltimore Ravens operating again Ray Rice by no means performed within the NFL once more after TMZ launched video of him knocking out his then-fiancée in an elevator in 2014. Like White, Rice insisted that he had by no means hit his fiancée previous to that night time and that alcohol was a significant factor, however hardly anybody was keen to provide him the good thing about the doubt or reserve judgment. The truth is, on the time, White chimed in on Rice’s scenario. “There’s one factor that you just by no means bounce again from and that’s placing your palms on a girl,” White informed Fox Sports activities Reside in 2014. “Been that method within the UFC since we began right here. You don’t bounce again from placing your palms on a girl.”

White hasn’t precisely adhered to a zero-tolerance coverage in his personal group. He had no drawback signing the previous NFL participant Greg Hardy, who had been convicted on a number of counts of home violence. (The sentence was overturned and the fees had been expunged from his document as a result of his ex-girlfriend failed to seem in courtroom throughout his attraction.) UFC finally let Hardy’s contract expire, however White’s stance on home violence clearly comes with some wiggle room.

Clearly, UFC is just not practically as well-liked because the NFL and due to this fact doesn’t obtain the identical degree of media consideration.  Blended martial arts additionally stays barely outdoors the circle of the most important mainstream sports activities, and a part of the attraction for a lot of followers is that the game is extra freewheeling than different main sports activities entities. However White is the face of UFC and probably the most recognizable names in sports activities. He has sought to make his sport a mainstream staple, and with that comes a excessive degree of duty. I can’t think about the commissioner of another outstanding sports activities group being in White’s place and never going through official punishment.

Learn: How UFC went from a $2 million area of interest firm to a $4 billion juggernaut

The shortage of shock and the apparent double commonplace haven’t gone unnoticed amongst Black entertainers. The actor and comic D. L. Hughley posted on his Instagram web page:

Within the feedback part, the actor Jamie Foxx remarked: “Fucking preach!!!!”

Some commentators have even gone as far as to attempt to justify White’s response by making the disgraceful argument that the manager’s spouse hit him first. By no means thoughts that he’s greater and stronger than she is. The UFC light-heavyweight title contender Jamahal Hill tweeted, “For those who don’t wish to get hit don’t hit no person interval!!!” On his podcast, the UFC bantamweight contender Sean O’Malley additionally defended White. “I really feel unhealthy for Dana,” O’Malley mentioned. “His spouse slapped him. That’s impolite. And it deserves a slapping again. I don’t know. I don’t know. It’s a difficult one. I don’t know, deal with individuals the way you wish to be handled.”

The final dismissal of violence towards girls is a contributing issue to White being considered so sympathetically. Sadly, the worst consequence he faces as of now’s a canceled tv present. White’s TBS actuality sequence, Energy Slap: Street to the Title, was imagined to premiere on Wednesday, however the community has rescheduled it to January 18. I’ll be shocked if the community goes by means of with a present that’s based mostly on aggressive open-hand hitting and has White’s identify connected.

The grand irony of all of that is that White doesn’t truly appear keen to simply accept the graciousness that others are so keen to provide him. “You’ve heard me say for years, ‘There’s by no means ever an excuse for a man to place his palms on a girl,’” White mentioned, “and now right here I’m on TMZ speaking about it.”

White isn’t providing any excuses, so why is nearly everybody else doing it?