ESPN the Leader in Push for Lefty Sports Media Change

May 11th, 2016 10:55 AM

Politics got you down? Let’s talk about something else. How about sports? Look, here’s an ESPN magazine piece about LeBron James and … his not doing enough for gun control?

Well, let’s try Sports Illustrated … er, never mind. You see, an upcoming cover of SI will feature very confused former Olympian Bruce Jenner in his current guise of “Caitlyn,” wearing only an American flag and a gold medal.

Yep. It’s not your imagination: Sports journalism – long a bastion of reflexive liberalism – is only getting worse. Last summer MRC Culture presented 10 Reasons ESPN is MSNBC with Better Video. We can add dozens to the list. And it isn’t just ESPN.

Making it in big time sports media is almost as tough as making it in pro sports. You don’t need a 40-inch vertical leap, but you must be able to lurch pretty far left. A killer curve ball isn’t necessary, but you better throw a 95-mph race card to make it in the show. And just as an elite QB can read defenses and exploit opportunities, you need to spot tiny perceived injustices and be ready to march down the field with them.

Check out USA Today’s sports page at random. In among the box scores and injury reports is the same progressive obsession with homosexuality that grips the rest of the paper. When will there finally be a gay MLB player? What can the NCAA do to punish states with “so-called religious freedom laws?”

That’s what inveterate lefty gasbag Bryant Gumbel urged the NBA to do to North Carolina in April on HBO’s Real Sports. Gumbel suggested Commissioner Adam Silver move the All Star Game from Charlotte, “showing lawmakers in Carolina and other states considering such measures that their bigotry has a price.”

Yes, bigotry has a price, and liberal sports journos are going to make sure you pay it. Over and over. What else to make of the racialization of Super Bowl 50? When, in the week leading up to the game, Panthers QB Cam Newton called critics of his touch down showboating racist, New York Times sportswriter William Rhoden swooned. “At a moment when violence against African-Americans has given birth to a vibrant Black Lives Matter movement and an intense discussion is being waged about the movie industry under the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite, Newton has forcefully introduced black participation in sports into the discussion,” Rhoden enthused. (It apparently wasn’t just Newton. The Huffington Post – where everyone goes for their NFL coverage – called the Panthers “the most unapologetically black team in NFL history.”)

Part of being a true pro in lefty sports journalism is harboring a healthy distaste for the business of sports and the fans who consume it. The New York Times sports writer John Branch is an All-Star in that regard. Writing in April at the time of the NFL Draft, Branch blamed the career flameout of former Cleveland Browns QB Johnny Manziel on the NFL, the Draft, the fans – anybody but Manziel.

According to Branch, “The N.F.L. draft -- our coverage of it and our appetite for it” shows how fans “are willing to dehumanize the games they love, turning people into products and lives into entertainment.”

Just so we’re clear: The Times is disgusted that fans have dehumanized players into entertainment products. Almost as disgusted as it is with racist fans who prefer not to see grown men bump and grind like strippers after every play.

You have a lot to answer for, NFL fans!

Killing Schilling

Such cognitive dissonance is part of being liberal. It’s the less acceptable (if more coherent) viewpoints that will cost you a spot on the roster at a big league team like ESPN. Last football season, when Coach Mike Ditka called Barack Obama “The Worst president we’ve ever had,” on air, he was removed from NFL Sunday Countdown. Which is fair enough, given that it’s a show about football.  (And it frees Ditka up for the sitcom role he was born to play: an irascible old gym teacher who obsessively but incompetently chases Lil’ Barry and the Choom Gang around Punahou High as they break all the rules in pursuit of social justice and cute girls.)

The problem is that when Tony Kornheiser likened Tea Party members to ISIS, he was on ESPN air, and the network was silent.

Which brings us to Curt Schilling, who didn’t use ESPN’s air to get in trouble, but got the boot anyway. Schilling’s crime: making an observation about human biology that was accurate until a few months ago when transgender-smitten liberals decided it wasn’t.

Schilling posted a picture of a transgender person, and made a comment regarding the effort to let transgender men use women’s restrooms.

The comment read: "A man is a man no matter what they call themselves. I don’t care what they are, who they sleep with, men’s room was designed for the penis, women’s not so much. Now you need laws telling us differently? Pathetic."

ESPN of course responded the way corporate weenies do: “ESPN is an inclusive company. Curt Schilling has been advised that his conduct was unacceptable and his employment with ESPN has been terminated.”

Ah, the Orwellian world of inclusion. Schilling’s put-out caused much rejoicing in halls of sports media group-think – from USA Today calling him “ignorant and insensitive to” The Times calling him a “bigot.”

Most disturbing of all is the Stalinist memory-hole treatment ESPN promptly gave Schilling. His dramatic, pivotal role the Red Sox come-from-behind win in the 2004 ALDS was erased from a 30 for 30 documentary about the series. Meanwhile, even people who aren’t baseball fans know that Schilling started Game 6 after ankle surgery and, in pain and sporting a bloody sock, pitched seven unbelievable innings.

True to form, Schilling has not taken it lying down. He publically said ESPN is home to “some of the biggest racists in sports commentating.”

Who knows, maybe there'll be some future rapprochement between ESPN and Schilling. They are, after all, very fair-minded and forgiving -- just ask Fidel Castro.

In the meantime, the quality of commenting isn’t going to get better any time soon. Within weeks of firing Schilling, ESPN announced it was hiring former U.S. Women’s Soccer star Abby Wambach and giving her a podcast called “Fearless Conversation with Abby Wambach.” That conversation will no doubt be fearlessly pro-LGBT, because that’s what Wambach is, a gay activist and vocal Hillary backer.

So if you’re looking for distractions from politics this election year, you’re better off with The Food Network and Cat Fancy than ESPN and SI. But if it must be sports, bypass the media and go take in a live game. Just be careful in the restroom.