While almost every other gay person in the mainstream sports media remains closeted, openly gay radio host Jared Max on WEPN/ESPN 1050 in New York won his time slot with key demos for the winter book. A very excited Max told me: Winter book ratings (Jan, Feb, March) just came out. My show ranked 1st [...]
Posts under ‘Commentators’
MSNBC news host Thomas Roberts: NASCAR racers go 500 mph
In the latest chapter of the gays-don’t-know-sports stereotype, openly gay MSNBC host Thomas Roberts invited NASCAR Chairman and CEO Brian France onto his show on Thursday to talk about how much fuel NASCAR burns, vis–à–vis Earth Day. Roberts dropped this bomb on France: The obvious draw for NASCAR is the speed, cars going up to about 500 [...]
Herm Edwards: Andrew Luck has “potatoes in his trunk”
It’s amazing to hear the comments that football analysts make about the guys in the NFL combine. It’s like they suddenly have license to examine the bodies of these top-notch athletes, and boy do they love it. The best I’ve heard so far came yesterday while former NFL coach Herm Edwards talked about presumptive No. [...]
Deion: ‘Six people trying to hit that Blount!’
He was talking about Tampa Bay running back Legarrette Blount, but methinks a double entendre was racing through Deion Sanders’ head. On Sunday he unleashed quite possibly the best line of NFL analysis I’ve ever heard when he said six Packers were all “trying to hit that blunt.” Deion probably thought of it in August [...]
Former sportscaster Damian Goddard goes on the attack against same-sex marriage
Earlier this year when sports agent Todd Reynolds Tweeted his disappointment with Sean Avery’s support of gay marriage, then-Sportsnet broadcaster Damian Goddard Tweeted his opposition to marriage as well. Goddard’s contract with Sportsnet was quickly terminated. Now Goddard is on the attack, lashing out at same-sex marriage in a new video (after the jump) for [...]
Kye Allums, Steve Buckley, Jared Max make for sportiest Out100 ever
We can’t remember an Out100 list that included so many athletes and people from the sports world. We already reported on Gareth Thomas’ inclusion on the list. Today the magazine revealed the names of three more: Sports columnist Steve Buckley of the Boston Herald; ESPN radio host Jared Max; and former college basketball player Kye [...]
ESPN’s Jamele Hill’s poorly considered, poorly argued defense of David Tyree
On ESPN.com yesterday, columnist Jemele Hill said she accepts and respects David Tyree for being so active and vocal in his belief that gay people should be treated as second-class citizens. The column is a sorry excuse for the quality we’ve come to expect from ESPN. Not just because as a black woman she should [...]
Bryant Gumbel addresses gays in sports tonight on HBO
Tonight Bryant Gumbel will offer a closing commentary on his HBO Real Sports show about gays in sports. He talks very positively about the issue, but he says he feels like he shouldn’t have to talk about it because it shouldn’t be a big deal. It’s the veil sports reporters have hidden behind for years; [...]
WWE commentator Michael Cole calls a colleague ‘faggot’ on Twitter
Just a week after the WWE claimed a new commitment to stop homophobia and bullying in the pro wrestling organization, one of their commentators Tweeted that another WWE commentator is a “faggot.” Michael Cole sent the jab at Josh Matthews because, you know, that’s the worst thing you can call someone in the WWE. Still. [...]
Podcast: Steve Buckley joins us to talk about coming out and supportive athletes
Boston Herald sports columnist Steve Buckley, who came out publicly in January, joins us to talk about the athletes who embraced him after he came out, how long it will be before we have an out active pro athlete, and some insight into Colts fans and the 2011 Red Sox. Listen to the podcast here [...]
Barkley loves the ‘homosexuality people’
At least his heart was in the right place. Barkley talked about the importance of including gay people in the vision or Martin Luther King Jr on TNT yesterday and said he loves gay people (calling them “homosexuality people” at first). Check out the video clip after the jump (Barkley talks at 5:50 in the [...]
Neil Everett is so straight he hates speedos
ESPN SportsCenter hosts are so macho and cool. They’re the most awesome, masculine dudes around, man. Just take Neil Everett and Robert Flores. They proved it last night when they showed a diver in a speedo plummeting a good 30 meters to the water below. Everett’s comment on the dive: You know what’s not a [...]
HBO talks with transgender sportswriters
Tonight’s episode of Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel features a segment called “The Big Switch,” about three transgender sportswriters: Christina Kahrl of Baseball Prospectus; Bobbie Dittmeier of MLB.com; and the late Christine Daniels of the Los Angeles Times. When they came out as transgender, they formed an unlikely sisterhood. And, as Gumbel says in the [...]
Dan Lebatard: TMZ Sports will out athletes
The Miami Herald’s Dan Lebatard is cringing at the thought of TMZ’s sports wing, scheduled to open up shop this year, in part because he thinks a closeted gay athlete will be their No. 1 target. One of the first orders of business at TMZ Sports, rest assured, will be to out a gay male [...]
Deadspin tackles the gay-athlete question
Deadspin’s Thursday mailbag yesterday had a question from a gay sports fan wondering when an active athlete in one of the big four sports would come out of the closet. Drew Magary took on the question with the same answer we keep hearing: I’m OK with it, but that guy isn’t. It’ll be forever. Whoever [...]
Bonehead sports commentator blunders
It seems in the last year I’ve been rolling my eyes more and more at blunders and dumb mistakes made by sports commentators. We’ll highlight some of the gems we find here. We’d also love to hear about some that you stumble on. This little gem came from Phil Simms calling the Broncos-Eagles game a [...]
Gay columnist: Athletes, stay in the closet
I’ve long said that gay athletes and sports fans have two coming out processes. First they have to come out as gay to their friends and family, and then they have to come out as sports fans and athletes to their gay friends. The latest evidence is a column by Brent Ledger (right) who writes [...]
Something’s “up” in Foxboro
Some people just shouldn’t be allowed near a telestrator, but we’re so happy they are. Randy Cross, who was in Foxboro for the Bengals-Patriots preseason game, outlined a group of lights from the mall that surrounds half of Gillette Stadium where the old Foxboro Stadium once stood. Screen capture after the jump. Share on Facebook
Weis’ apology acceptance adds to homophobia?
It’s been interesting and educational to read the reaction from various corners of the media to the “fag-bomb” dropped by Hawaii football coach Greg McMackin last week. Jon Pyle, a blogger for SI.com, focused on Charlie Weis’ reaction to the incident and called it a “giant step back for sexual orientation in football“: More important [...]
Has sports journalism improved for women?
Has the world of sports journalism gotten any better for the women who have made a career there? Longtime sports journalist Susan Reimer thinks it may have improved (there was a time when she wasn’t allowed in the Orioles locker room), but there’s still a long way to go. A woman ran a seminal and [...]