The Washington Commanders, a D.C.-based football team, dismissed one of its executives after he was secretly recorded by an undercover reporter making comments suggesting the team’s Black players were “homophobic” and describing some NFL players as “dumb as hell.”
The executive was identified by several news outlets, such as The Washington Post, as Rael Enteen, who held the title of vice president of content for the Commanders organization.
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Enteen was recorded with a hidden camera on two different dates with an “undercover” reporter from O’Keefe Media Group. The reporter did not tell Enteen she was a reporter during the dates.
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On the recording, Enteen said, “A big chunk [of the Commanders roster] is very low-income African American that comes from a community that is inherently very homophobic,” the Daily Mail reports Enteen as saying in the recording.
“I love hip-hop, hip-hop is very homophobic,” he reportedly stated in the video. “It’s a cultural thing that I hope gets better.”
Enteen called NFL fans “high school-educated alcoholics” and “mouth breathers.”
He also claimed that Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones “really runs the NFL” and expressed his belief that Jones “hates gay people and Black people.” He referred to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell as “a $50 million puppet” and criticized the league’s social justice initiatives as merely performative.
While discussing his role, Enteen mentioned a 2021 incident when pipes leaked at FedEx Field during a game, causing fans to complain about a sewage-like smell. He said he was tasked with tweeting on behalf of the team, insisting the leaks were only water, and described the tweet as “state-run media.”
According to The Athletic, the reporter from O’Keefe Media was not named. She matched with Enteen on a dating app and can be heard speaking in an 11-minute video that contains the recordings of the homophobic and racist comments.
O’Keefe Media is a conservative media organization that uses “citizen journalists” who secretly record conversations, which are then edited, often in misrepresentative ways.
The Commanders condemned Enteen’s comments in a statement, saying, “The language used in the video runs counter to our values at the Commanders organization.” It is also conducting an internal investigation.
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