By Gina Morrone ’14
Unless you’ve literally been living under a rock, you know two things: the New York Jets released Tim Tebow this week, and Jason Collins became the first active “major sport” athlete to come out as gay, via Sports Illustrated Magazine. He claims that although he did not plan on it, he is ready and willing to ‘start the conversation.’ The 34-year-old center boasts a pretty high society circle of friends. His time at Stanford connected him to both the Kennedys and the Clintons.
Those tweeting out to him in support included Chelsea and Bill Clinton, Kobe Bryant, Steve Nash, Kevin Durant, NBA Commissioner David Stern, and The Rock among others. But, while social media was exploding with not just commentary, but well-wishes, TV’s leading sports network was not.
Until roughly two hours after the initial announcement, ESPN barely mentioned the news. Perhaps it was because Collins sat down with rival Sports Illustrated, but regardless, ESPN was busy with the likes of Tim Tebow, Chris Bosh and Kobe Bryant. In addition to that, ESPN’s website failed to place Collins at the top of their page until about three hours after it broke.
Instead, Tebow’s release dominated SportsCenter. The quarterback, who may I remind you was a backup last season, was mentioned a grand total of seven times before Collins name was dropped. Disappointing, to say the least.
Did ESPN not want to appear biased by commenting on the story? Did they not know how to approach the news in an unbiased way? Or did they really just not care, placing Tim Tebow’s troubles and the end of the Los Angeles Lakers’ season above all else?
In one story, Skip Bayless claims, ‘The world is so fascinated by Tim Tebow.’ Are we, Skip? Or are you?
I don’t know about the rest of you, but I would have loved to see an in depth piece about how Collins came to his conclusion to make this announcement. Will there be more like it? Will this affect his future as a player? Is he dating? I could go on, but I’ll wait by my TV for ESPN to step up its game and show me.