Friday, August 14, 2009

ESPN wags the Dog

This morning I was working out and they had on Mike and Mike in the morning. Vick was the main topic and Golic was really upset and saying he didnt "feel sorry" for Vick because he made alot of money already. It felt the jealousy like most retired players who left before the big money rewarded great talent and average talent. At first it was mostly positive emails saying that Vick served his time and should be able to go back to work if a team wanted him. Sal"The Titans have made an offer to the cards for Boldin on draft day" Palontonio was on the phone eventually and he started doing one of those reports that was 99% his opinion but like Bill Oreilly he stated it as facts. Sal said he walked past men and women crying at the Eagles game last night. People saying they would put Eagles season tickets on Ebay and never come to another game.

The "I will sell my season tickets" threat also happened here in nashville twice that I know of. Vanderbilt for some odd reason announced they wouldnt recruit Ron Mercer because of his grades. Ron Mercer is the best basketball player I have seen in my lifetime locally so it was a huge deal. Vandy fans said they would sell their season tickets and Vandy took a few years to recover from the loss of boosters. The start they had last season in football brought back alot of the fans lost in "Mercergate",rofl. The other incident happened when the titans didnt draft Vanderbilt quarterback Jay Cutler. The same threat was made of selling season tickets but alot of the people who did it had financial problems and saw this as a good excuse to get out without any shame. Eagles fans hit by the current economy could use the vick excuse to sell tickets or they could upgrade like I did after the Cutler thing happened(Now I can see the game without binoculars but I bring them anyway to see if I recognize any cheerleaders from high school or college*clears throat*).

I saw that to back up what Sal said a little but after he talked about rushing over to the Eagles press conference to see how many protestors there would be, suddenly mostly negative emails and phone calls came in to Mike and Mike. Of course Golic loved this because he is jealous of the money he thinks Vick made and he may also be mad about the dogfighting. I feel like ESPN is reporting mostly negative reaction so they can turn the tide of public opinion. In politics they call it "the tail wagging the dog" because they minority who covers the story is influencing the majority opinion.

I felt like steroids in baseball was a big deal and so did most of the media. The baseball season ticket holders do not thats why baseball had a record season last year and are doing great this season. No matter what the public says reporters keep leaking names of enhancement users and doing LONG stories on how bad they are and how they wont go to the hall of fame. Most of them have a city of fans that love them as baseball players and they retire with 9 figures or more in their savings account so they dont care if they get in the hall of fame or not anyway. A local guy hit the ceiling because a caller said reporters dont fully understand players because they never played or coached the game. He said and I quote,"We should boycott a day and let these former athletes do all the sports tv,radio and print media. That will show you ungrateful fans!!!" Is this guy serious? Today players were tweeting about Vick and being positive even Jay Feely a conservative republican NFL kicker who has been on foxnews sent a positive tweet but this local reporter thinks athletes cant form an opinion and do his job.

The ego on the media is insane. One papers headline actually said,"Hide Your Dogs". Are you kidding me? Stay classy print media and good luck finding a job on tv after your paper folds. Most of you smug journalist jackasses have faces that are perfect for radio because we cant see you. ESPN is way too powerful and the best thing about the Vick story is that he gets a chance to make a living in his profession after 2 years in prison. The second best thing about this story is that ESPN DIDNT GET THE SCOOP. They act like they control all american sports and they have connections everywhere. They had vick going to so many teams but Philly was not one of them. A day or a year or a lifetime without the big egos and jealousy of the media would be great. They have an attitude of "fans are too dumb to know better so we will tell them what to think". An entire day with no Skip Bayless and Jay Mariotti going against every opinion just to stand out. No horse teeth Linda Cohn or Dana Jacobson being completely rude to people.

A black player is leaving high school to go play in Europe so he can get around the NBA rules. Linda Cohn who is a mother actually said,"Where are the parents this is terrible?" She would never say that to his parents face or she would go from horse teeth to no teeth. Linda Cohn wouldnt want people to question her parenting skills. Linda Cohn also wouldnt people to question what kind of wife she was before her marriage ended in divorce(who the hell wants to be single again at 50). Of course there is a white baseball player leaving high school at the same age to take his GED and play at a junior college so he can enter MLB draft early. Mike Wilbon said the black basketball player was a shame to the black community and part of an epidemic but of course he loves the 18 year old nascar phenom and that baseball player who is going around the rules. The two white kids have great parents and a bright future but the black basketball player should risk injury and no money just to put more money in the pockets of a big university. There is also a 17 year old who just went deep into the US Open and no one was asking about her college of choice or bad parenting. Just like with most situations I gave more than one example of ESPN being hypocrites because I feel like you should cover them the same if its positive or negative coverage.

The internet again is the best thing to happen to sports journalism because with ESPN getting so big and choosing what is news or not to cover a big story because it will hurt their bottom line. That is wrong and they should be ashamed. The internet is here so we can find out about what ESPN wont cover or when they choose to put a slant on it. I told you ESPN didnt preview the Titans/Bills game on NBC because it was heads up with their Redsox/Yankees game. One person emailed me and said it was because it was preseason(exhibition). Well ESPN previewed the hell out of last night Cardinals/Steelers PRESEASON game and of course that just happened to be on their network. They are also throwing up ads for their next preseason game on Monday night. If I had money I would start a competing 24 hour sports network because ESPN is turning into Walmart/China powerful. The positive about the game last night was Jon Gruden sounded great,no fishsticks. Gruden will coach again one day but for now he is the best to step in the Monday night booth since the big homie Madden.

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