DOWN WE GO
FOX, ESPN work from same sleazy plan hiring sports' worst citizens
ESPN has so long been in the habit of hiring the wrong man for the wrong position for the wrong reasons that every time a pro athlete is arrested or a college coach is nailed for running a crooked program, the gag among the conditioned is that he was just auditioning for ESPN.
And now the joke’s on FOX’s shot-callers, eager to copy the ESPN plan that brings ridicule and failure in exchange for sacrificing credibility and the attention of intelligent viewers — a self-inflicted lose-lose.
FOX has hired Washington cornerback Josh Norman as an “In-Season Contributor.” FOX doesn’t know Josh Norman from Norman Vincent Peale. But it knows this about him:
With the Panthers last year, he was the guy who engaged in that relentless, unrestrained, pathetic, unprofessional on-field street fight with Odell Beckham Jr. Prior to the Steelers-Bengals playoff game gang-war, Beckham versus Norman was 2015’s Exhibit A of pro football in steady decline as a sport.
FOX knows this, as well: Norman, a braggart, has continued to garbage-talk Beckham, hardly an innocent last Dec. 20, even identifying the Giants receiver as a mobstyle target: “I’ve already got a couple people telling me, ‘OK, I’ve got a hit out on him.’ ” Charming.
That’s what FOX likes about him; that’s his appeal. Behaving as a detriment to the game and society at large is why FOX chose him and why he’s supposed to draw viewers — as if we don’t by now recognize TV’s formulaic folly in rewarding the worst acts.
Meanwhile, ESPN still is at it. Longtime Panthers’ receiver Steve Smith, now with the Ravens, has been hired to be a semi-regular on the “Mike & Mike” simulcast.
Smith long has been an ESPN favorite. In 2008, while suspended for breaking the nose of a teammate in a sideline fight, he shot a “This Is SportsCenter” promo.
Although he calls himself “a Christian,” he vowed vengeance on the Panthers for releasing him in 2014 — after 13 seasons — vowing that when the Ravens play Caro- lina, “There’s going to be blood and guts everywhere.”
As if to cement Smith’s appeal to ESPN, last year during a preseason game, he was ejected for fighting.
It’s not that networks can’t do better. There are many good, worthy men on NFL rosters. But they’re ineligible receivers.
The worst part: Sports TV almost always aims to attract the “young male demographic.” No group counts more. And TV and radio, for roughly the past 25 years, believes that the best way to do this is to present the worst acts — the most selfish, immodest, crude, violent and destructive — as the best attractions.
As long as there’s no better idea, that’s the only one. So down, down, down we go.