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Tonight while the rest of you are watching college football’s national championship game, I’ve decided to take a pass and not watch any of it and do something hopefully more constructive: write a blog for the Baby Boomer Brotherhood. I have nothing against Washington but no real interest either. And Jim Harbaugh isn’t a guy I can root for after all the bobbing and weaving he does whenever asked about his team stealing signs. Trustworthy isn’t the first word I think of when I see him; Jim-centric is what comes to mind.
I think he knew about the sign stealing and figured out a way to weasel out of admitting it, and who really likes weasels? Tell the truth, Jim, or get out of our lives.
And I don’t care if he stays at Michigan or goes to the NFL; I just want to stop hearing him evade questions and be deified because when he coaches his teams often win. Go, whatever. Just get out of our lives.
Plus you know the game will be interrupted 48 times for commercials and replays, thus breaking the flow of the game.
I think the more important story right now is the feud going on between ESPN suits and Pat McAfee, GameDay talking head and host of his Pat McAfee Show on ESPN. This story about the feud is taking hype time away from ESPN promoting the game, and you know that’s irking ESPN suits.
To catch you up, last week Aaron Rodgers implied as a guest on the show last week that talk show host Jimmy Kimmel may be on the list of people involved with the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking ring.
Totally a bush move by Rodgers but so like him in every way. This is called defamation of character, a serious offense. He should be fired for calling out a guy like that with such a damaging and unproven accusation. Rodgers should go away and never come back because all he does is spread bad vibes and posture he’s smarter than everyone. Away, Aaron. Please go away. Anywhere but here.
Then McAfee said on the air that there’s a “rat” at ESPN committing sabotage by releasing negative numbers about the show’s ratings, and McAfee said he believed it was Norby Williamson, the number three guy at ESPN.
This alone would get most people fired from their jobs. You don’t publicly attack a senior leader of your own company and get away with it. If I did this tomorrow morning, I would be gone before lunchtime.
Pouring on the outrageousness, then McAfee posted a Tweet linking to a video of Tony Montana in Scarface saying this:
“What you looking at? You’re all a bunch of f—– a——s. You know why? You don’t have the guts to be what you wanna be. You need people like me so you can point your f—— fingers and say “That’s the bad guy.” So what does that make you? Good? You’re not good? You just know how to hide, how to lie. Me , I don’t have that problem. Me, I always tell the truth. Even when I lie.”
Even if this guy Williamson really stuck it to McAfee to mess up his show, which he may have but I doubt in the way McAfee portrayed it, McAfee’s counter-punch was an unnecessary and classless intimidation move. It showed he’s unsophisticated when it comes to dealing in the professional business world.
I actually appreciate his muscle-man-shirt loose style and upbeat personality; it’s refreshing compared with the in-your-face yelling of some ESPN and other sports talk shows.
But it’s haughty and unimpressive to go with the “I’m a big bad dude and you can’t intimidate me” move by trashing Williamson and quoting Scarface who was the ultimate angry intimidator. A sophomoric stunt this was, seriously bad judgement.
You’ve made a lot of money with your show and ESPN deal, Pat, some say $18 million a year. And by playing your intimidation head game with ESPN suits you’re showing off that you don’t need them and they can fire you, that no matter how they try to mess with you you’ll stand your ground and do your show the way you want to. You’ve done the math that convinces you you’ll make plenty of money and maybe even a lot more if let go from ESPN’s control.
I kind of doubt it now because you’re showing who you really are, which is a bully who is selfish, inflexible, and big into controlling everything about your show. People stop watching the show of a bully who is selfish and overly concerned about doing everything his way. People like me won’t watch you; I never did actually but again, I like your fresh upbeat attitude; I just don’t gain much value from what you say that makes it worth my time to listen.
The larger issue going on is about the broadcast and print journalism profession being jealous of you. You are not trained as they are, but have leapfrogged way ahead of them in the money you make and popularity.
Journalists have big egos just like you, and they work hard, and they’re often intellectually arrogant, and they pay a lot of dues covering stories and researching and writing for decades and don’t make nearly as much as you do in your meteoric rise to the top of the clickbait totem pole. No one ever said you’re a journalist, including you, but you’re in the media business packed with journalists vying with you for the attention of viewers and readers.
You’ve taken a lot of that attention away from them and they don’t feel you’ve paid the necessary dues working in the hard craft of journalism to be so much more popular than they are. They want power and to be popular and more money; they see you as taking what they want.
This is why the New York Post reporter broke the story about you paying Rodgers and Nick Saban about $1 million a year each to be on your show every week. Journalists are going after you, trying to take you down, because they don’t think you deserve to be in the position you’re in making as much money as you do.
You obviously do deserve it in the sense that ESPN has been willing to pay you. You’re an entertainer and successful entrepreneur but you’re in the media industry that is loaded with very ambitious people with high IQs many of whom have college degrees from Ivy League schools. They hate losing as much as you. You’re in a bigger battle than you realize and aren’t as well schooled the media craft and business that they are.
They want to take you down if they can because they want more attention on the work they do and feel they’ve invested a lot more sweat equity than you have refining their crafts as print and broadcast journalists.
I don’t know what’s going to happen to you in the next few days, but I suspect ESPN will eventually let you go because they can’t have an employee trashing top management and get away with it – no matter how much money you’re generating for the business. If they keep you, ESPN employees are bound to become more disgruntled that you’re allowed to talk trash to the bosses when they aren’t. There’s too much at stake for ESPN to keep you around.
I think you should be let go for being so unsophisticated and reckless to attack an executive brashly then release some video of a maniac Scarface, who is one of the least admirable characters ever created, a mass murderer.
What were you thinking? I think you’re out of your league being with ESPN and don’t have the journalistic skills and training to be in this kind of business. I get it, you’re an entertainer talking about sports. But honestly if I want to be entertained and gain valuable sports insights I’m not going to you. I’m going to watch trained broadcast journalists who have their own shows such as Dan Patrick and Rich Eisen.
They’re more polished and would never release a Scarface video to intimidate the bosses. You scarred yourself with that move and the scar is going to be burned into you for a long time.
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Sammy Sportface, a sports blogger, galvanizes, inspires, and amuses The Baby Boomer Brotherhood. And you can learn about his vision and join this group's Facebook page here:
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