Plan B Forum

Robert Lee: ESPN under fire for taking announcer off UVA game

By trying to avoid an embarrassing ordeal, ESPN has embarrassed itself.



On Tuesday night, the network confirmed that its management moved an Asian-American announcer, Robert Lee, off the University of Virginia's home opener football game "simply because of the coincidence of his name."

Earlier Tuesday, a source had told CNN that Lee was abruptly switched to the Youngstown versus Pitt game. He had recently been promoted by ESPN, so the switch was a sensitive matter.

News of the decision follows the violence that broke out earlier this month at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, protesting plans to remove a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. The night before the deadly violence, white nationalists marched across the UVA campus, carrying torches and chanting racist slogans.

Now, UVA is preparing for the start of a new school year. The opening home game -- against William and Mary -- is on September 2, the same day as Youngstown versus Pitt.

Both games are slated to be live-streamed on ESPN's digital networks, not on television. But if ESPN thought this was a minor change, it was quickly proven wrong when word leaked out on Tuesday.

The website Outkick the Coverage broke the story -- with a headline invoking a popular conservative nickname for ESPN, "MSESPN," which derides the network as the sports equivalent of the liberal talk shows on MSNBC.

The headline said, "MSESPN Pulls Asian Announcer Named Robert Lee Off UVa Game To Avoid Offending Idiots."[Tough to argue with that...] The story was so popular that the site's servers were overloaded on Tuesday evening.

ESPN subsequently said in a statement that its executives "collectively made the decision with Robert to switch games as the tragic events in Charlottesville were unfolding."

"In that moment it felt right to all parties," the network said. "It's a shame that this is even a topic of conversation and we regret that who calls play-by-play for a football game has become an issue."[Then why did you decide to make it a "topic of of conversation" you friggin' mo-rons?]

From ESPN's perspective, the executives were trying to guard against Lee becoming a punchline, given that he shares a name with a Confederate general.

They foresaw memes and headlines "Robert Lee marches into Charlottesville." Moving Lee to a different game was seen as a way to support him.

But many commenters on social media said ESPN overreacted. The story lit up Twitter and Facebook on Tuesday. Two of the prime time shows on Fox News mocked ESPN for the decision. A banner on screen called it "pathetic."

"ESPN did this out of fear of the yowling mob. And is part of it now," John Podhoretz, the editor of Commentary, wrote on Twitter.

Well-known ESPN anchor Bob Ley also weighed in and made light of his last name: "Rather worried my employee ID/pass may not admit me in the AM. Life, as scripted by @OnionSports."

Gob wrote:Oh come on guys, I thought we were way ahead in the "totally fucking unbelievably stupid offence taking" stakes with the bearded nurses....

Lord Jim wrote:
We're Americans, Strop...

We refuse to be outdone...

A Paddy Power advert urging people to ‘Always Bet on Black’ ahead of Floyd Mayweather’s superfight with Conor McGregor has been banned.
The ad, which appeared in various newspapers and featured an image of Mayweather, read: ‘We’ve paid out early on a Mayweather victory because we’ve checked, and only one of them is a boxer.’

Nine readers complained to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), saying the headline contained an obvious reference to Mayweather’s race and was likely to cause serious or widespread offence.

But Paddy Power defended the ad and said ‘betting on black’ was a roulette gambling reference as the fight was taking place in Las Vegas.

They also said it was a reference from the film Passenger 57 when Wesley Snipes said: ‘Do you ever play roulette? Well, let me give you a word of advice: always bet on black.’

They acknowledged that the headline referred to Mayweather’s race, but said it was not used in a derogatory, distasteful or offensive manner and the overall tone of the ad was light-hearted and humorous.

The bookmaker said the campaign was approved by Mayweather, who found the line funny, rather than offensive or derogatory.


Read more: http://metro.co.uk/2017/09/20/advert-ba ... z4tSLqeGbT