More Le Batard hijinks

Reportedly suspended 2 days by ESPN for LeBron billboard in Akron:

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/the-turnstile/espn-suspends-dan-le-batard-two-days-for-lebron-billboard--stunt-210307698.html



Supposedly, he tried to submit the same ad to the Plain-Dealer and it was rejected.

 

"We are not the story ..." aw, hell, you know the rest.

 

Two day suspension. LOL. Pretty harsh.

Can't wait to see the Grantland cartoon mocking it.

 

Toy department.

 

Remember when the DC political reporter paid to have this billboard put up near the White House:

 

No.

 

Exactly. That's the point.

It's only the toy department where this happens. And, it only gets you a two day suspension.

 

Any number of hard-luck people would have benefited from the dollars it cost to erect this.
We are a ridiculous country.

 

Little dramatic, isn't it?

Dan LeBetard is a talk show host. That's all he is. A two day suspension is ridiculous for this, in comparison with past ESPN discipline. (And don't take this as a defense of it, per se -- it's silly hometown rah rah bullshit.)

ESPN needs to decide what it wants to be -- and let the record show, I'm not one of the ESPN bashers on the board. I like a lot of what they do, dislike a lot of it, and think the way people fixate over it here is ridiculous. But there's a real problem with ESPN giving TV and radio talk shows to guys like Stephen A. Smith, Skip Bayless and Dan LeBetard and then punishing them for doing something "controversial." It's their job. They are paid to spout "outrageous" things, so ESPN can then promote that you need to watch because "you never know what they're going to say!"

Either let them do their thing or don't do the show. I think Smith and Bayless are reprehensible shitheads and I would never employ them for anything... but if you're giving an idiot a show, don't act shocked when he says something idiotic. LeBetard's just kind of a calculating goof, and getting upset over a mocking billboard is pretty spineless on ESPN's behalf.

 

No, we are not a ridiculous country. We have a country with a growing and maybe already disproportionate number of asshats like LeBatard. ESPN should have priced that billboard and suspended him for enough days that it costs him multiple times that amount in salary. And then used the money to rent the billboard with a photo of LeBatard and a big ol' "Suspended" across it.

Funny how the guy who never fails to back the athlete's side of any issue is such a homer he can't accept James' right to leave Miami or be happy for him as he goes home.

 

Who is watching First Take anyway? Other than college kids, the unemployed, Richard Deitsch, other ESPN people, and pro athletes? If Michelle Beadle hadn't dropped the hammer on SAS, his comments would have been a fart in the wind.

 

Honestly, I have no idea. But someone is, or it wouldn't be on the air anymore. I assume the numbers are pretty good or they'd drop it just to spare themselves the headache.