Whitlock: Jay-Z and Bad Bunny broke the Super Bowl. Now ESPN is purging its house.

There’s a striking parallel between ESPN’s latest round of layoffs and the dystopian world of the film "The Purge" — and BlazeTV host Jason Whitlock knows why.

“In the movie ‘The Purge,’ the ruling class gives you one night a year, 12 hours, where all crime, including murder, is legal. They sell it to you as catharsis, healing, a release valve, so the country stays calm the other 364 days,” Whitlock explains on “Fearless.”

“It’s a lie. The purge was never about healing. It was about money. The elites quietly eliminating the people they decided were too expensive to keep and dressing it up as something noble so nobody asked the real question,” he continues, adding, “This week ESPN began its purge.”

Of those “purged” were Ryan Clark, Cam Newton, and many other veteran anchors.

“The network wants you to believe it’s just business, restructuring, budget cuts. Don’t buy the catharsis story. There’s a body they’re protecting. It’s worth billions,” he says, “It’s called the Super Bowl.”

And while some are blaming “racism” for the firings, Whitlock points out that plenty of white broadcasters have been cut.

“The purge doesn’t kill by color. It kills by cost. It eliminates whoever’s become too expensive, too much liability for the future the elites are building. That’s what you’re watching. Not a racial purge, an economic one,” he says.

“Clark and Newton weren’t cut for their skin, they were cut because they carried the most risk to the thing ESPN is trying to save,” he explains, noting that they were “loud, divisive,” and “expensive in every way that matters when you’re about to host the biggest broadcast in America.”

And the writing was on the wall when ESPN hosted the most recent Super Bowl featuring Bad Bunny as the halftime performer.

“Last year’s Super Bowl leaned into Bad Bunny at halftime. Divisive, political, and a huge slice of the country. The traditional patriotic core of the football audience felt like the game was no longer being made for them,” Whitlock says.

“The NFL’s whole flirtation with the Jay-Z era, the constant catering to an audience that was never the football base. It cost them. The ratings told the story, and everyone inside the building read it,” he continues.

“What do you do? You purge. You clean out everyone who represents the era that started the bleeding. Not for their color, for their cost to the number you have to protect,” he adds.

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