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 Tagged ‘ESPN’
Homophobia among chief reasons for decline in female college coaches
With the NCAA women’s Final Four underway, ESPN has produced an exhaustive story that looks at the dwindling number of women coaching women’s college teams (it’s down from a high of 90% in 1970 to 42.9% now). Sexism plays a huge role in it, with women finding it hard to get second jobs after they’ve [...]
Mark Cuban makes distasteful ‘boyfriend’ joke at the expense of Bill Simmons, apologizes
Mark Cuban has seemed to be a great ally of the LGBT community over the years, even saying that the first out pro athlete in North America would make a boatload of cash. But there’s still a little uneasiness in Cuban that came out during a podcast with Bill Simmons at the MIT Sloan Sports [...]
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. [...]
ESPN fires, suspends employees responsible for ‘chink in the armor’ headline, comment
ESPN has fired the employee responsible for a racially charged Jeremy Lin-inspired headline on their mobile site. They have also handed a 30-day suspension to their network anchor who used the term ‘chink in the armor’ to refer to Lin. In their statement this morning they said: We again apologize, especially to Mr. Lin. His [...]
ESPN apologizes for ‘chink in the armor’ headline, promises review
Last night, ESPN’s mobile site used a headline with a racially charged double entendre to describe Jeremy Lin’s game against the Hornets. This morning they have ap0logized and are promising a review of the process that lead to the insensitive headline: Last night, ESPN.com’s mobile web site posted an offensive headline referencing Jeremy Lin at [...]
ESPN uses racial epithet in headline of Jeremy Lin story
Update Sunday, 8:30AMPT: ESPN has fired and suspended people responsible for headline, comments. Update Saturday, 8:20AMPT: ESPN has apologized for the headline. ESPN has been the biggest champion of New York Knicks star Jeremy Lin’s rise during the team’s seven-game winning streak. But they have potentially undone it all with a horribly racist headline that [...]
Jalen Rose has a problem with shirtless men chest-bumping one another
Jalen Rose is in hot water over calling Patriots tight end “white boy wasted” this morning on the Mike & Mike Show, but it’s his homophobic comment that has out wrestler Akil Patterson hot under the collar. According to Patterson, Rose (who is an expert on losing championships) said in his tirade against Gronkowski’s post-Super [...]
LZ Granderson: NFL deserves gay rights credit
ESPN columnist LZ Granderson recently gave the NFL a pat on the back for their gay-rights efforts. I personally think they have a long way to go, and I know the NFL is currently refusing to talk about LGBT issues, leaving it up to the teams. Still, LZ’s point is that they have at least done [...]
ESPN’s Rob Parker doesn’t like men dancing alone together
Updated at 2:43pmPT with comments from Charissa Thompson. Today’s episode of ESPN’s First Take tackled the issue of the New England Patriots’ post-game party. While Skip Bayless didn’t find much fault with the players dancing (possibly intoxicated) at a previously planed event, Rob Parker was most concerned about the fact that there didn’t seem to [...]
Andrew Goldstein, America’s first out pro team-sport athlete, issues a challenge
When we put together our list of the 100 most important moments in LGBT sports history, we knew we’d probably overlook something. Maybe an Austrian hurdler came out in the Eighties, or some Slovakian soccer player had said something horribly homophobic and damaging. And we may have missed something like that. But I was incredibly [...]
GLAAD media awards nominees announced; sports virtually absent
Over the last few years we’ve been very pleased to see GLAAD recognize the increasing LGBT work done in sports with multiple sports-related nominees for their media awards. This year, as far as we can tell only one of the 151 nominees is directly related to sports: ESPN’s segment on Kye Allums. What makes that [...]
ESPN shows a little Crimson Tide nudity during Alabama postgame interview
The inadvertent locker room penis shot during a TV interview is an Internet staple and the latest comes via ESPN, which on its YouTube channel has an interview with Alabama wide receiver Kevin Norwood. It was filmed after the Tide beat LSU in the BCS title game. Alert reader David points out the brief nudity [...]
ESPN Radio host Bruce Jacobs demonstrates a true apology
Athletes take notice: This is how you apologize. ESPN Radio host Bruce Jacobs in Albany, N.Y., made stupid comments last Tuesday when discussing the WNBA. He referred to two teams as the Los Angeles Lesbians and the Phoenix Dyke-ury (the two teams are the Sparks and the Mercury). According to the Albany Times-Union, Jacobs apologized [...]
Renee Richards gets ESPN treatment
The documentary film ‘Renee,’ about transgender tennis player Renee Richards, will air tonight at 8pm as part of ESPN’s ’30 for 30′ documentary series. Richards was originally denied eligibility to play in the women’s U.S. Open in 1976; Her legal victory in U.S. courts winning the right to play is our #12 most important moment [...]
Moment #19: ESPN airs “World of the Gay Athlete”
Part of Outsports’ series on our 100 most important moments in gay sports history. Media, 1998: ESPN made the issue of gays in sports the centerpiece for coverage on the air and online in late 1998 and into 1999. “The World of the Gay Athlete” was groundbreaking in that a major mainstream media outlet devoted [...]
Moment #39: ESPN the Magazine hires LZ Granderson as NBA editor
Part of Outsports’ series on our 100 most important moments in gay sports history. Sports media, 2004. When I first met LZ Granderson he was writing sports for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and opening a gay bar in Atlanta. From our first meeting, Granderson struck me as a smart, personable, soulful guy who was on the [...]
Meet Andrew Luck, former grizzly man
In November, 2009, we highlighted Stanford quarterback Andrew Luck as our weekend hot jock. We said then he was one to watch and that you’d be hearing a lot about him. Certainly his performance on the field has lived up to our hype – but the latest cover of ESPN the Magazine makes us rethink [...]
ESPN criticized for covering gay sports issues
ESPN is being criticized by a media watchdog group for giving too much attention to the issue of gays in sports. The Media Research Center Network, a media critique site run by self-described social and religious conservatives, is upset with ESPN’s recent coverage. Gay ‘rights’ and same-sex marriage have been all over the news lately. [...]
LeCharles Bentley, Cyd Zeigler get into it as ESPN’s ‘Outside the Lines’ talks gays in sports
Outsports generated some heat on ESPN’s ‘Outside the Lines’ on Friday when former NFL center LeCharles Bentley and I got into it. Bentley said I’m “one of the pariahs within the gay community” because Michael Irvin appeared without his shirt on on the cover of Out magazine. When the host asked me to respond, I [...]