Comments on: ESPN INCONSISTENT ON MAYO, BUSH STORIES?

By: Dekan

Dekan — Tue, 13 May 2008 13:24:58 +0000

It just doesn’t rank as high…..Bush had a couple of awards worth taking back….Mayo has zip.

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By: wingnut

wingnut — Tue, 13 May 2008 03:04:12 +0000

Hold the Mayo.

Im bored.

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By: Beveaux

Beveaux — Tue, 13 May 2008 02:39:40 +0000

ESPN spent the final year of Bush’s college playing days pimping him and USC as the greatest ever.

No way was Bush a legitimate Heisman Trophy winner without ESPN doing a 30 minute weekly recap on every yard Bush gained during that year to the exclusion of everyone else.

And, in late December, can anyone else remember the consistent ESPN stories on whether USC was the greatest team ever?

Pete Carroll allowed agents at all the practices and in the locker room. He created the big time, here we go, atmosphere. USC’s one NCAA championship during the Bush era might be in jeopardy.

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By: brian_21

brian_21 — Tue, 13 May 2008 02:05:25 +0000

Yup. It’s unfortunate that editorial decisions are based on whether ESPN breaks a story or not (or has the sport or event on its TV station). But that reality will probably not change in the near future.

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By: 33243324

33243324 — Mon, 12 May 2008 22:49:02 +0000

Actually Mayo was being paid while he was at NCH H.S. as well. The only other people in NCH that drove a car like his were the drug dealers. So I think the $30,000 cited in this story may actually be on the low side.

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By: pdyerosu

pdyerosu — Mon, 12 May 2008 22:37:14 +0000

And you, Florio, are now letting your hatred of all things ESPN get in the way of your good journalism. I find it ammusing that everyone comes on this site and bashes ESPN, but I bet everyone here watches SportsCenter, watches games and reads plenty of news on the Web site. Just accept the fact that they aren’t perfect (and neither is anyone else) and watch what you like. Thats what I do here, I read it for what it is and move on.

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By: PhillyRocks

PhillyRocks — Mon, 12 May 2008 21:05:19 +0000

Also lets leave out the common sense that Bush is old news and Mayo is brand new news. And actually you search on ESPN, they have like 3 or 4 stories, search Bush and you get a ton of info.

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By: PhillyRocks

PhillyRocks — Mon, 12 May 2008 21:01:45 +0000

PFT is no different. Because if it was it should be reported if you search Reggie Bush you get a ton more then you do Mayo.

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By: pats307

pats307 — Mon, 12 May 2008 19:54:09 +0000

To steal a line from When Harry met Sally,you had me at “ESPN INCONSISTENT”

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By: Cave_Canem

Cave_Canem — Mon, 12 May 2008 19:44:55 +0000

Wildly, but I would expect nothing less from the Worldwide Leader in Overhyping Everything.

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By: thxkbye

thxkbye — Mon, 12 May 2008 19:44:54 +0000

Who cares. Its ok for the NCAA to make millions off of a player, but when a kid tries to get something for it all hell breaks loose. Down with the NCAA.

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By: unga

unga — Mon, 12 May 2008 19:44:37 +0000

Could it be that ESPN is paying 1 billion+ to the NFL? It’s easy to ignore stories like these when your bottom line could be affected.

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By: Section731

Section731 — Mon, 12 May 2008 19:43:51 +0000

Bush was already in the NFL before the story broke. The timing is the key. Oh yeah and NFL games are on ESPN while the NBA is on TNT. Whoever breaks a story is big on it for a while - it hasn’t been as exposed on media outlets that didn’t “break” the stroy. Just as the Bush story wasn’t huge on ESPN. I don’t blame Mayo thought - before the NBA rules change he would have been making millions last year instead of 30 grand.

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By: RyanHarris

RyanHarris — Mon, 12 May 2008 19:35:08 +0000

If you were ESPN why would you fire Emmitt? Is he a terrible speaker? No doubt about it. Do people watch? Absolutely.

If I were running ESPN I would go the other way with Emmitt. Not only would I keep him for commentary on the NFL, I would use him to pick up interest in other sports as well.

Who wouldnt watch more NHL games if Emmitt was doing color commentary? Watching him stumble through names like Ovechkin, Chara and Lundqvist would be a solid 8.5 on the comedy scale.

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By: regal

regal — Mon, 12 May 2008 19:28:31 +0000

ESPN is a joke. The haven’t been a sports news operation for years.

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By: Mr. Touchdown

Mr. Touchdown — Mon, 12 May 2008 19:24:57 +0000

Yeah, and these two guys are the only two guys EVER to get any extra benefits in college.

P.S. Fans don’t care, because this is an “NCAA Rules” violation.

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By: monger

monger — Mon, 12 May 2008 19:19:08 +0000

The first thing they should do is go out and shoot all the suits at ESPN like dogs.

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By: Shaun Lowrie

Shaun Lowrie — Mon, 12 May 2008 19:17:12 +0000

http://thebiglead.com/?p=3134#comment-65950

‘For example, ESPN turning a blind eye to the Reggie Bush scandal (a story broken by–and apparently only covered by–Yahoo Sports) is unforgivable.

But if ESPN releases the hounds on Reggie Bush, he might no longer be available for the “Sunday Conversation” or the “Budweiser Hot Seat”‘

That a pseudonym?

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By: moonbeam

moonbeam — Mon, 12 May 2008 19:16:55 +0000

hey cliffclav,excellent observation,hardly anyone
that visits this site realizes that money is the grease
that lubricates all the axles.
everthing in sports(business)points to the bottom line.

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By: JimJarrell

JimJarrell — Mon, 12 May 2008 19:15:37 +0000

How would that benefit ESPN, though? It would only seem to benefit Bush, if that were the case. My theory is the source of information on Mayo was a real-live person providing an exclusive to ESPN, whereas the source of information regarding Bush was in the manuscript of a soon-to-be published book by an author that ESPN did not have exclusive interview rights with. Why would ESPN bother to help sell books without some exclusive source material? I think it makes total sense for ESPN to play this situation exactly as they have.

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By: Deacon Blues

Deacon Blues — Mon, 12 May 2008 19:09:37 +0000

Or maybe college football puts more in the ESPN coffers than college basketball……..

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By: promichael

promichael — Mon, 12 May 2008 19:06:04 +0000

In my view ESPN has shown bad journalism in both the Mayo
and Bush situations. Pat Forde an ESPN writer seems to
blame U.S.C. for both situations and wonders why they are
not held accountable for NCAA rule violations. Forde does
not seem to realize that we live in a free enterprise
system and if agents act early and autonomously from U.S.C.
how can one blame the university. I see a constant effort by
sportswriters to go after the big fish or in this case the
University of Southern California. There is no fun bringing
down the individual agent and more exposure in bringing out
allegations against a major University like U.S.C.
go after the indivdual agent

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By: Mephistopholes

Mephistopholes — Mon, 12 May 2008 19:04:46 +0000

“But should a media organization make editorial decisions about which stories are and aren’t “big” based on whether the organization in question broke the story? The answer is, clearly, no — but unless and until such nuances of journalism ever impact ESPN’s audience, we don’t expect such practices to change.”

Right. ESPN seems to have abandoned the pursuit of sports journalism in favor of an embrace of sports infotainment. As such, ESPN works simultaneously to cover sports in a TMZ, focus on the drama fashion, and to promote its own brand. Understanding the preference for pushing stories its in-house reporters may claim as their own is then easy: self-promotion.

ESPN seems to have realized that the human drama elements of sports stories hook a an element of the population less interested in scores, wins, and the like and more interested in, well, the drama. As a consequence, ESPN pushes sensation and drama rather than information.

What else should one expect from Disney?

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By: DM

DM — Mon, 12 May 2008 19:04:33 +0000

ESPN was too busy manufacturing Bush to be the greatest RB ever before he even played a single down in the NFL.

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By: FloriosPhillyFan

FloriosPhillyFan — Mon, 12 May 2008 18:59:31 +0000

I never did trust ESPN.

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By: bluedoctor

bluedoctor — Mon, 12 May 2008 18:56:33 +0000

On Sunday I was watching Sportscenter and there was this fluff piece featuring Bill Russell and Kevin Garnett. It had Bill and Kevin sitting in a living room by a fire with Bill speaking directly to Kevin and saying that he believes Kevin will win “two or three” championships by the time he retires. Melodramtic piano music is playing in the background. Meanwhile Kevin is mumbling “I feel you man..I feel you man..I feel you man…” (scene ends)

WHAT…THE…HELL??

Who makes these types of decisions? Why does ESPN suck so much?

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By: dcowboy7

dcowboy7 — Mon, 12 May 2008 18:56:19 +0000

whos this joe mayo ?

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By: msullivan1984

msullivan1984 — Mon, 12 May 2008 18:55:31 +0000

typical ESPN favoritism

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By: PhillyRocks

PhillyRocks — Mon, 12 May 2008 18:53:46 +0000

I think maybe because Yahoo broke the Bush story.

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By: BBWCinDC

BBWCinDC — Mon, 12 May 2008 18:53:24 +0000

Anyone else find it ironic that a piece which concludes with a harsh (but arguably fair) statement on the state of journalism showcases such piss poor research? How can you rag on other media outlets when all you did to reach your conclusion was run one Google search? You didn’t even click the next arrow on the results page!

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By: Rob0769

Rob0769 — Mon, 12 May 2008 18:48:30 +0000

ESPN being inconsistent in the way they cover stories? You must be joking. ESPN would never be biased in their reporting.

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By: Randall Cunningham

Randall Cunningham — Mon, 12 May 2008 18:47:41 +0000

I disagree, Mike.

This is a bigger deal because it’s USC’s second high-profile athlete / high-profile scandal in the last couple of years. So this makes it a pattern, which shows a bigger problem - USC sports in general.

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By: VDogg

VDogg — Mon, 12 May 2008 18:39:08 +0000

When you’re the only game in town you have the luxury of this type of reporting, personnel decisions, and programming choices. The NFLN will continue to carve out the stranglehold ESPN has had on football, as evidenced by the draft coverage, (Mayock=awesome) and when they lose that, it will open the door for others hopefully to take their pieces of the pie from ESPN in other areas. Then they will be forced to do some “real” reporting and actually giving a damn what the viewers would like to see…instead of force feeding names like Emmitt “Debacled” Smith and Michael “Those Hoes ain’t wit me” Irvin and Chris (insert your favorite name) Berman.

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By: cliffclav

cliffclav — Mon, 12 May 2008 18:36:15 +0000

Not to be conspiracy theorist but could it be that Reggie Bush already had millions of dollars tied up in corperate sponsership. And maybe just maybe that the money they would lose on bad press out weighed the media potential of that story.

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