Humphrey opened up on his decision to quit football broadcasting
Jake Humphrey has admitted that a return to football broadcasting is unlikely for him.
Humphrey left BT Sport at the end of the football season last year following it’s rebrand to TNT Sports and was replaced by Laura Woods as the presenter for Premier League and Champions League games.
Since leaving, Humphrey has put more focus into his podcast, the ‘High Performance Podcast’ in which he interviews a number of high-profile figures about their achievements.
The 45-year-old received plenty of criticism during his time as a presenter on BT and in an interview with The Athletic, revealed that the online abuse he got played a factor in why he chose to walk away and why he probably won’t return.
“I still get triggered with things like this because my head goes, ‘You have this great conversation, you’ve been really honest. What headline do they pick?'” he said. “Because that can then just bring me more heat, more hate.
“In some ways, it makes you think, ‘What’s the point even talking about this stuff?’ But then I think I should talk about it, because this is a lived experience that I wouldn’t want someone else to live.
“It’s hard when you’re just going to work to try to earn your money and pay your mortgage and feed your kids, and you’re getting pelters from people who assume you hate their football club, or that you’re not very good at your job.
“That ground me down. I’m just not very good at dealing with that sort of stuff. I remember saying to Gary Lineker, ‘How do you deal with that?’. And he said, ‘I don’t care about it, it bounces off me’.
“I would go, ‘Yeah, I’m gonna feel the same’, but I just couldn’t. I never felt comfortable with that sort of criticism, because I don’t understand it. For someone to think I’m not very good at my job is fine but some of it strayed into bullying territory.
“It would have to be something really interesting to tempt me back. I love doing big events that test my skills as a broadcaster, but the constant, relentless, sausage-factory type approach of just doing football match after football match? Probably no, on reflection.”
As well as the game-to-game coverage, Humphrey also said he felt uneasy talking about topics such as managerial sackings once he had started the podcast as the two platforms had different approaches in how they were presented.
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