On a day like today, all I can really say is, wtf Internet. Like many others, I opened up Facebook on my phone to scroll, only to find an ESPN article detailing how Russell Wilson doesn’t have sex with his girlfriend Ciara. One, you need not inform me that Ciara is in fact still alive. Two, da fuck?
“News” like this has continued to deteriorate with what I now see as the TMZ sports edition. Girlfriends and personal lives are relevant news stories, as are tweets completely unrelated to sports. This now makes me realize how relevant the whole “deflate gate” thing actually was. It was about a football! Which is actually used… In football! Which is… A sport!
The funny thing is, I vividly remember the day I thought ESPN couldn’t go any lower or become any less relevant with their news. It was in August with the college football season about to kickoff. In advance of West Virginia playing Alabama in the opener, they ran a story about how then-Mountaineer quarterback Clint Trickett’s first kiss had been none other than Alabama coach Nick Saban’s daughter Kristen. Ooh, the drama. only this wasn’t a high school, or perhaps middle school lunchroom; it was a reputable source. Why do I remember, you ask? Because I truly thought it was hilarious and naively believed that was the tipping point. But here we are almost a year later, talking about a quarterback’s sex life. Not really stuff I want to know about. I don’t even want to know who you’re dating, truth be told.
More importantly, did we bring this on ourselves? Did demanding a 24/7 news cycle, even for sports channels, ensure that this would happen? Perhaps, but I would’ve hoped that before someone’s dick size get reported that we become okay with a few more repeat highlights.