Grant Napear #

Introduction #

Grant Napear is a longtime Sacramento sportscaster who spent 31 years as the play-by-play announcer for the NBA’s Sacramento Kings and hosted a daily radio show on Sacramento’s KHTK 1140 — and who lost both jobs in June 2020 after replying “ALL LIVES MATTER … EVERY SINGLE ONE!!!” to a question about Black Lives Matter from former Kings star DeMarcus Cousins. The reply, sent during the week of nationwide protests that followed George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis police custody, cost Napear his broadcasting career at its peak. He sued his employer, Bonneville International Corporation, for wrongful termination, and on September 3, 2026, a federal appeals court ruled that the company was within its rights to fire him — closing, for now, a five-year legal fight over whether a tweet can legally get you fired.

Background Information #

Napear had been the Kings’ play-by-play announcer since 1988, calling games through the franchise’s entire Sacramento era, and was a familiar voice to Northern California sports fans as the host of “The Grant Napear Show” on KHTK Sports 1140, a station owned by Bonneville International. By 2020 he was one of the longest-tenured announcers in the NBA, and his employment contract with Bonneville required him to maintain “a high standard of care and level of responsibility” on social media because his posts could affect the company’s “public image and reputation” — contract language that would later become central to the case. He had also previously drawn criticism for defending disgraced former LA Clippers owner Donald Sterling.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation #

On June 1, 2020, about a week after George Floyd was killed, Napear — off work and watching protest coverage, as he later described it — received a question on Twitter from Cousins, a Black former Kings center then playing for the Lakers: “What’s your take on BLM?” Napear replied that he was glad to hear from Cousins, writing, “Hey!!! How are you? Thought you forgot about me. Haven’t heard from you in years. ALL LIVES MATTER…EVERY SINGLE ONE.” The response, wording often used by opponents of Black Lives Matter, ignited immediate backlash. Bonneville suspended him the next day and fired him one day after that; the Kings said Napear had resigned from his TV role. Bonneville said in a statement: “The timing of Grant’s tweet was particularly insensitive. After reviewing the matter carefully, we have made the difficult decision to part ways with Grant.”

Napear apologized, telling The Sacramento Bee, “I’m not as educated on BLM as I thought I was… I had no idea that when I said ‘All Lives Matter’ that it was counter to what BLM was trying to get across.” Former Kings star Chris Webber added that people inside the organization had long known about Napear, tweeting: “Demarcus we know and have known who [Napear] is. The team knows as well. I’ve told them many times. They’ve seen it. They know who he is.”

Public Reaction and Consequences #

The firing ended both of Napear’s broadcasting jobs at once and made him one of the most-cited examples of a sports figure losing a career over social media — commentators grouped him with former pitcher Mike Bacsik, fired by a Dallas radio station in 2010 after a disparaging post about “Mexicans in San Antonio.” In October 2021, Napear sued Bonneville in federal court, arguing the company had punished him for personal political expression unrelated to his work; his complaint claimed the firing violated California’s anti-bias law and asserted discrimination based on his sex, race, and religion. In April 2025, US District Judge Dale Drozd dismissed the lawsuit without a trial, ruling for Bonneville and closing the case.

Current Status #

On Thursday, September 3, 2026, a three-judge panel of the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Drozd’s dismissal. The panel — Judges Bridget Bade, Danielle Forrest, and Lawrence VanDyke, all appointed by President Donald Trump — held that Bonneville acted legally to protect its public reputation, that California law does not appear to “prevent employers from limiting employees’ political expression undertaken within the scope of their employment such that it impacts the public reputation” of the employer, and that Napear’s Twitter activity “involved his celebrity persona such that his statement fell within the scope of his professional capacity.” His attorney, Matthew Ruggles, disputed that reading: “Grant Napear actually owned that Twitter account, had published approximately 38,500 tweets before he tweeted ‘All Lives Matter…Every Single One,’ and that tweet was not made on-air, during work, or as part of any radio show… It was Grant’s personal expression, and that issue should be decided by a jury, not the court.” Ruggles said he will seek a rehearing before the full appeals court and, if that fails, ask the Supreme Court to review the case.

Impact on Their Career/Life #

The tweet and its aftermath erased the two roles that defined Napear’s career — a 31-year NBA play-by-play chair and a daily Sacramento radio show — and sent him into five years of podcasting, including his show “If You Don’t Like That With Grant Napear.” He returned to terrestrial radio only in August 2025, as a daily host on Fox Sports Radio in Sacramento — a far smaller stage than the one he left. Beyond his own career, the ruling now stands as binding precedent across nine Western states: employers may fire workers for political social-media posts tied to their public professional personas, even ones sent off-hours from personal accounts. Whether that precedent survives depends on whether the full 9th Circuit or the Supreme Court agrees to revisit it. Napear was never accused of any crime; his case was always about where the law draws the line between an employee’s personal speech and an employer’s right to protect its reputation — and as of September 2026, the courts have drawn that line against him.