According to an article in
today’s Hollywood Reporter, if Keith Olbermann hopes to sign an
extension of his existing, two-year contract with ESPN, he will have to agree to
stop engaging in commentary on his ESPN2 program.
Olbermann has come under repeated fire for ill-informed
and inflammatory comments, including a tirade earlier this year when he mocked
both sides of the domestic dispute between NASCAR driver Kurt Busch and his
former girlfriend, Patricia Driscoll; mistakenly identifying Kurt as his younger brother Kyle and referring
to Driscoll as Busch’s wife, rather than his ex-girlfriend. Promptly called on
the carpet by NASCAR fans, Olbermann characterized his mistakes as “typos,”
urging NASCAR Nation to, “Settle the eff down and be happy something
interesting happened in your simplest of sports.”
Days
later, he named Jeff Gordon his “Second Worst Person in the World” after Gordon
took part in an exhibition tricycle race at halftime of an NBA basketball game,
to promote the upcoming Daytona 500.
Olbermann’s hair trigger and intolerance
for opinions other than his own have consistently landed him in hot water with
his employers. He has come under fire for comments aimed at the National Football
League’s handling of the Ray Rice domestic violence case, and earlier this
year, he served a four-day network suspension for a series of hateful tweets
directed at Penn State University students.
As he often does, Olbermann immediately
backtracked on his comments in an attempt to save his job, correctly
categorizing his comments as “stupid and immature.”
Is it any wonder than ESPN wants Olbermann to stop
swinging his verbal arms?
After all, this is the same Olbermann who was dismissed –
okay, fired -- from MSNBC’s
presidential election coverage in 2008, after donning a mask of rival Bill
O'Reilly and delivering a Nazi salute at a television critics' convention.
This is the
same Olbermann who was canned by Current TV in 2012 for
what the network called “a failure to honor the values of respect, openness,
collegiality, and loyalty to our viewers.”
The
same guy who castigated Jeff Gordon for “demeaning the sport” in an effort to
promote the Daytona 500, despite appearing no less than 10 times on Hollywood
Squares over the years, to promote himself and his show.
Olbermann's current contract expires in August. Short of handing
him his walking papers, ESPN would do well to muzzle any future “commentaries” and force
him to simply report the news, rather than trying to be the news.
"Keith who?" (If we really want to scare him).
ReplyDeleteOlbermann has no right to have a TV show anymore. His opinions are not just disagreeable, they are malicious and belligerently inaccurate; when he insists on attacking the Confederate Flag and the use of Redskins for the Washington Redskins he never gives an accurate history of either and consistently fails the logic test. I used to be a fan of his because of his engaging SportsCenter performances in the mid-1990s, but his malice has shown no bounds and he has earned his way off the air.
ReplyDeleteWhen Olbermann speaks, he is most of the time right. Nascar is a joke, and everybody connected with Nascar is a joke. I have put it one step below the WWE. I love the WWE and hate Nascar. I did like it until the flag issue came up. It is the only true southern sport around, and Brian France wants to ban our flag. He needs to move up north with the rest of the yankes that have ruined out sport. Yes Moody, I am talking about you and the rest of the clowns from the north. Nascar was great till they started sticking their nose in it and ruined it. I do not listen or watch anything that has to do with Nascar. After I post this, I will unfollow Moody. When they go back to old time racing, I will come back. Old time racing,Petty, Person, and people that made Nascar. When they get back to that type of racing, I will come back. No back up cars. Run what you brung. You wreck,take it home fix it,try again next week. So long Nascar. The biggest joke in sports.
ReplyDeleteTo Anonymous - while I don't necessarily disagree with your larger point, what specifically qualifies as "old time racing?" You cite the Petty-Pearson era, unforgettable an era no doubt, but back then NASCAR had the tightest rules box in racing as well as today; the difference primarily is in the technology arms race.
DeleteI ask only because I hear such criticisms yet they never seem to be supported by specifics. Old time racing, as in what? My idea of old time racing is bias-ply tires (i.e. tires that require drivers to race the car hard throughout the track as opposed to catching the car a la sprint cars), allowing push-drafting, not penalizing passing below the yellow line, the lead being an actual prolonged battle (such as the finish of the Truck Series 200 at Charlotte), and some form of cost/spending controls given the sport's economics. Banning backup cars really doesn't make any sense. "Run what you brung?" That was outdated thinking in the 1970s.
Euthanasia would be more appropriate.
ReplyDeleteApparently you don't know very much about this show. It was in fact created for Olbermann to give his take on sport stories of the day, if ESPN just wanted him to read straight news, they would have put him back on Sportscenter. Your little Hollywood Reporter story makes no sense. ESPN isn't going to create another Sportscenter to compete with it's own Sportscenter.
ReplyDeleteA little more research into the subject matter would have been helpful.
Word now is ESPN has officially fired Olbermann yet again.
ReplyDeleteHere's some research. ESPN just told him to pack his junk and get out. Disagreeable commentary on topics is one thing (e.g, Skip Bayless, Stephen A. Smith). Torching Rome just to watch it burn is psychotic. Keith Olbermann has been nothing more than an internet troll with a television show for quite some time. The best way to handle him, like all internet trolls, is to just ignore him. Much easier to do now that ESPN has decided he's not worth the headache (again).
ReplyDelete