Sports Media (local and national)

[UtahsMrSports]

Interesting fact that may be of interest only to me: The state's rep in the AP Top 25 football poll, for the first time I can ever remember, is not a newspaper guy, but Tony Parks of 1280.

Thats not a bad choice. As a Michigan fan, he doesn't have any allegiances to the local schools. Hes also not a troll.

[UtahsMrSports]

Has anyone been following the ESPN-Jemele Hill situation? (I realize this is national media)

Hill has been suspended for 2 weeks (starting last week) for pointing out to fans that they could boycott sponsors of the Dallas Cowboys in response to Jerry Jones and standing during th anthem. Critics called foul citing racism/sexism. This comes on the heels of Hill getting in some trouble for calling president trump a bigot and a white supremacist. (This also led to a somewhat humorous appearance by Clay Travis on CNN where he derailed the entire conversation about Jemele by dropping one of his taglines and the CNN host got offended. IMO, Clay is a buffoon, but when you willingly bring him on to discuss something, what do you expect?)

I dont really buy the racism/sexism comment. I think this is more about ESPN being unwilling to allow its personalities to take a run at the NFL, ala Bill Simmons.

Putting Jemele and Michael on 'The 6' sportscenter has led to a drop in ratings (though I haven't seen any numbers where they are adjusted for drop in subscriptions, not that that means a ton). I gotta think Jemele is one controversy away from looking for work elsewhere.

[DrumNFeather]

Has anyone been following the ESPN-Jemele Hill situation? (I realize this is national media)

Hill has been suspended for 2 weeks (starting last week) for pointing out to fans that they could boycott sponsors of the Dallas Cowboys in response to Jerry Jones and standing during th anthem. Critics called foul citing racism/sexism. This comes on the heels of Hill getting in some trouble for calling president trump a bigot and a white supremacist. (This also led to a somewhat humorous appearance by Clay Travis on CNN where he derailed the entire conversation about Jemele by dropping one of his taglines and the CNN host got offended. IMO, Clay is a buffoon, but when you willingly bring him on to discuss something, what do you expect?)

I dont really buy the racism/sexism comment. I think this is more about ESPN being unwilling to allow its personalities to take a run at the NFL, ala Bill Simmons.

Putting Jemele and Michael on 'The 6' sportscenter has led to a drop in ratings (though I haven't seen any numbers where they are adjusted for drop in subscriptions, not that that means a ton). I gotta think Jemele is one controversy away from looking for work elsewhere.

I think she will ultimately parlay this into a non-sports job at a major network.

[UtahsMrSports]

I think she will ultimately parlay this into a non-sports job at a major network.

I think you are spot on. She has managed to generate a lot of controversy (ie gotten her name out there) without doing anything close to career ending. Id love to see the ratings for ESPN's 'debate' shows. It boggles my mind why anyone in 2017 would sit through most of ESPN's non-live sports programming. (Since I think the group has had this discussion before, ill edit this to clarify that I mean daytime programming.)

[DrumNFeather]

I think you are spot on. She has managed to generate a lot of controversy (ie gotten her name out there) without doing anything close to career ending. Id love to see the ratings for ESPN's 'debate' shows. It boggles my mind why anyone in 2017 would sit through most of ESPN's non-live sports programming. (Since I think the group has had this discussion before, ill edit this to clarify that I mean daytime programming.)

PTI, College Gameday, that's my list of shows I watch on a regular basis. Clay Travis is not necessarily wrong as to why they are losing some of their viewers. But as you note, some of his tomfoolery gets in the way of any salient point he makes most of the time.