Vick Coverage Gets Weirder
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by Rawbeezeitz
I’m watching SportsCenter, hoping to see highlights of the late night Yankees/Angels game, when ESPN’s coverage of the Michael Vick case reached a whole new level of weird.
As if a bunch of sportscasters, former football players, and writers dishing out legal analysis wasn’t bizarre enough, the Summer of Ron Mexico got even stranger as Monday Night Countdown’s panel of “experts” broke down how Michael Vick would be when released from prison.
“Mike Vick will have plenty of time to focus on football while incarcerated”
“Did he learn something while he was incarcerated?” (past tense!?!)
“People come out of jail redeveloped and redefined. This could be an opportunity for him”
It was an odd analysis, four football “experts” talking about the possible effects of something which might happen, as if it had happened. Are baseball and MLS highlights this unappealing to SportsCenter that they need to kill people’s brain cells with this theoretical crap?
After 8 minutes of sports coverage, ESPN was coming dangerously close to reaching its maximum non-Vick content, so they returned to covering this now boring and worn out story. Actually, what they did was cover their own coverage, reeling off a lengthy and “gritty” montage of SportsCenter highlights following Vick’s career. That’s right, SportsCenter showed a highlight of SportsCenter highlights. It is the 3 rd sign of the Apocalypse.
But what’s funny is that SportsCenter, despite highlighting itself, has yet to do any real introspection on how they cover sports and athletes. They’ve yet to say “Maybe we focus too much on individual athletes like Vick, building them up into superheroes, then tearing them down like supervillians.” Instead, ESPN and the rest of the sports media will continue to focus on the individuals of sports, as well as their individual lives. David Beckham, Tony Romo, Barry Bonds, Tom Brady, Kobe Bryant, Lebron James, Chad Johnson, Alex Rodriguez, Peyton Manning, and so on.
So what will ESPN do with the Vick story next? We’ve seen them do mock-trials for things like whether or not Pete Rose belongs in the Hall of Fame. Why not reenact the Vick trial? How about an America’s Most Wanted style show about Vick with actors acting out the actual crimes committed. Maybe give Vick a prison-based reality show. It’ll be The Surreal Life meets Oz. ESPN will figure out some way to continue talking about this, at least until the next story comes along. I’m thinking the impending civil union between David Beckham and Landon Donovan will be the big feature item on SportsCenter in a few months.
Thankfully, this story will soon come to an end, and will be incarcerated in ESPN’s archives along with Kobe Bryant, Duke lacrosse, Jason Kidd, and David Justice; coming out every once and awhile for Stuart Scott to use in some Top 25 highlight show. Vick, too, will be imprisoned for a few years, and might even be deemed ineligible for the next 10 Who’s Now tournaments.
