Deadspin, The Eye Of Our Rage

By Robert Ferringo

In case you couldn’t put it together from my kind of rambling, drunken post last night, I really couldn’t care less about the LeBron James issue and his free agency. (And no, writing about it on my little blog here isn’t perpetuating it and helping fuel the hype. That ship has sailed. And it was really just a way to try to cash in on it with a quick reax post. “Thanks, bubby.”) I haven’t paid any attention to it this summer, have tried to change the channel whenever the topic came up on TV or radio, and have generally just punched friends in the face when they’ve asked my opinion on it.

I’m more interested in the “darker forces” at work here. And I came across a great post at Deadspin that kind of sums up what has gone down. Check it out HERE. And there is a second, also interesting article HERE.

Now ESPN and Deadspin are two sties and outlets that I try to avoid whenever possible. (ESPN is nothing but corporate whores and are Pure Evil. Deadspin are Forum Freaks and Trolls with a really good megaphone.) But the article works and touches on something that is of the utmost interest to me (media manipulation and corporate control of public perceptions). It’s blunt, it’s not the most intelligent critique, but it touches on what is, to me, the main point and most important aspect of the LeBron-mania:

We are the sheep. And ESPN is the shepherd. Sport has long been dead.

(PS - While I write this Scott Van Pelt, one of the few ESPN folks that I genuinely like, is busy sucking himself and his company off because of the rating that they scored last night with the LeBron-a-thon. Awesome. This before cutting to Eric Snow to get his impressions of LeBron’s decision. I guess Greta Von Susteren was busy.)