We know how boring it is when bloggers talk about other bloggers (the staggering amounts of circle jerking in the blogosphere is vomit inducing ) but this is a special case because it involves ESPN.
It’s not often that bloggers agree on things but everyone is in universal agreement that Colin Cowherd is a complete tool. (Remember, this is the professional who stole content from a blog and didn’t bother to credit them.) In case you missed it last week, Cowherd told his listeners to take down TheBigLead.com by having everyone log onto thebiglead all at the same time (audio here). Well, it worked and TBL was down for about two days.
The outrage about Cowherd’s junior high level antics forced the ESPN ombudsman to address the issue in her latest column:
The official response from ESPN’s communication department was: “Our airwaves should not be used for this purpose. We apologize.” It is the kind of bland public statement that does little to assuage the anger and distrust of ESPN’s audience over an episode like this. I could not tell from that statement how seriously ESPN regarded the offense, so I contacted Traug Keller, senior vice president, ESPN Radio, to get a clearer idea of ESPN’s reaction.Keller responded immediately to my request for an on-the-record statement. “We talked to Colin Cowherd, and we talked to all our radio talent, making it clear that you cannot do this,” Keller said Friday. “Our airwaves are a trust, and not to be used to hurt anyone’s business. Such attacks are off limits. Zero tolerance. I can’t say it any stronger.”
Keller said that he had not formulated a policy about such attacks on Internet sites until now because he had never imagined the possibility of them.
How sad is it that a behemoth like ESPN has to tell their employees that knocking out tiny mom and pop level outlets isn’t cool. Now, if they had taken down one of the shittier sites, we probably wouldn’t care but they took down one of the better sports blogs. However, there is a silver lining for this. The Big Lead wouldn’t have been able to buy this kind of publicity; so in a way, Cowherd did them a favor. Still, Cowherd better get used to his name and douchebag being linked together on google.
Links:
[The Big Lead]: Do it Again and the Kitten Dies
