Larry Brown Sports

How image conscious and controlling is Floyd Mayweather Jr.? The boxer reportedly insisted that if HBO wanted to produce his fight on May 5th against Miguel Cotto, their announcers would not be able to discuss his out-of-ring affairs.

Sports by Brooks reported the story and says Mayweather’s representative, Al Haymon, made the demand that also prevents HBO’s announcers from discussing Mayweather’s management team.

Brooks says Mayweather made the same demands during past negotiations but previous HBO Sports President Ross Greenburg would not agree to those terms. New president Ken Hershman reportedly has agreed.

What’s confusing is why Hershman would agree if Greenburg did not. If that was an issue for Mayweather in the past, wouldn’t he have just gone to Showtime? Maybe it wasn’t as big of an issue until his in-ring blowup with Larry Merchant. Or maybe now that Floyd has dealt with several court cases and is headed to jail, he’s more concerned with protecting his image.

If all the information from the report is true, it’s extremely disappointing that HBO would agree to the terms. Discussing the multiple lawsuits and court cases Mayweather is facing, including his upcoming jail sentence, is a big part of his story. I guess this proves what we already knew: Money talks, and Floyd delivers plenty of that.

Turns out ESPN Mobile and ESPN television anchor Max Bretos weren’t the only ones to use an offensive slur against Asians when discussing Jeremy Lin. Knicks radio voice Spero Dedes did too.

On his final call of the Knicks’ 89-85 loss to the Hornets Friday, Dedes said “For the first time in what has been a remarkable two-week run, Jeremy Lin shows a chink in the armor. The Knicks’ seven-game winning streak ends against the Hornets as they fall for the first time since February the 3rd.”

Here is the audio:

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Using that phrase is unacceptable when discussing an Asian player and Dedes should know better. This is somewhat different from what ESPN Mobile did because being on-air requires more spontaneous thought than writing a premeditated headline. Still, it does not excuse what Dedes said. Even though he seemed to be using the phrase in the context of Lin showing a weakness on the court, poorly crafted and offensive statements are the result of calling games with cliches rather than original thought.

Hopefully the multiple incidents over the past few days have taught people to avoid making racist statements in all forums.

UPDATE: Dedes was disciplined by MSG though he reportedly will not miss any games. Spero said “I am deeply sorry that my unfortunate choice of words offended anyone, it was completely inadvertent. I have apologized to Jeremy and I apologize to the Asian community if others were offended. I will be much more sensitive to my choice of words moving forward.”

It may be time for the folks over at ESPN to permanently retire the phrase you see in the screen grab above. If their writers and anchors simply don’t use it, they might be able to avoid major controversies. Early Saturday morning, an extremely insensitive headline was posted ESPN.com’s mobile web site after the Knicks suffered their first loss since Jeremy Lin took over as starting point guard.

What is particularly surprising about the situation is that this isn’t the first time ESPN has gotten into trouble with the exact same headline. Back in 2008, the same phrase appeared on ESPN.com during Team U.S.A.’s gold medal run at the Beijing Olympics. In addition, ESPN anchor Max Bretos snuck the phrase in when discussing Lin and the Knicks on the air Wednesday night.

Another ESPN anchor later apologized for what Bretos said on television. You would think between that and the backlash they faced three years ago, the World Wide Leader would have learned their lesson. Apparently neither incident was at the forefront of their thinking on Saturday morning. It took ESPN about 30 minutes to realize they had made a major mistake with their latest headline, which led to the following apology on their media website.

Last night, ESPN.com’s mobile web site posted an offensive headline referencing Jeremy Lin at 2:30 am ET. The headline was removed at 3:05 am ET. We are conducting a complete review of our cross-platform editorial procedures and are determining appropriate disciplinary action to ensure this does not happen again. We regret and apologize for this mistake.

As you can see, this has become a recurring theme for ESPN. The use of this particular phrase certainly isn’t doing their public relations department any favors.

MSG had already toed the line of racism when they showed a picture (or fan’s sign) of Jeremy Lin’s face above a fortune cookie Wednesday. ESPN has gone clear past that line and straight into the offensive with the above headline seen on their mobile website late Friday/early Saturday (click twice to enlarge the image).

That’s right, some person either wasn’t thinking, or was trying to be blatantly racist, and called the Knicks’ 89-85 home loss to the Hornets a “Chink in the armor.”

Chink of course is a derogatory term for a Chinese or Asian person. Jeremy Lin is of Taiwanese descent, and the Knicks lost for the first time with him as their starting point guard.

There is no way around this headline. I checked ESPN’s website from my Android phone and saw it too. Someone is definitely going to be reprimanded for the horribly offensive headline. Not even Floyd Mayweather would have said something that offensive (at least we hope not).

Here’s another look at the headline as it appeared on an iPhone:

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A feud between Shaq and Jalen Rose that has been brewing since at least 2010 reappeared on Thursday night.

Jalen, now a DUI getting, racist statement making NBA analyst for ESPN, sent the following tweet Thursday evening mocking Shaq’s girth:

TNT aired Jalen’s tweet and Shaq played ignorant, saying he didn’t know who Jalen was, and that he only watches two people on the rival network — none of whom are Rose.

Rose responded by blasting Shaq’s pathetic analyst skills. The former Michigan Fab Five member sent two tweets ripping Shaq’s on-air work. Rose deleted the tweets, but luckily Jocks and Stiletto Jill grabbed them for us:

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Here’s something MSG probably would like to take back. During Wednesday night’s broadcast of the Knicks’ 100-85 win over the Kings, the network displayed this unfortunate (get it?) image of Jeremy Lin‘s head over a fortune cookie. The image was initially reported as an MSG graphic, but MSG says the image was of a fan’s sign.

The Knicks are now 7-0 since Lin began playing significant minutes. In that time he’s averaged 24.4 points and 9.1 assists, posting a career high in assists (13) Wednesday. He has delivered constantly and revitalized New York’s season.

You would have figured after what’s already happened that MSG would be conscious about not crossing the racism line when it comes to Jeremy Lin. They used poor judgment by displaying the image.

Photo via Darren Rovell

Jason Whitlock addressed the racist tweet he sent about Knicks point guard Jeremy Lin Friday, apologizing for ruining the great story, but failing to apologize for invoking a stereotype.

Responding to the Asian American Journalists Association which called for him to apologize, Whitlock wrote the following:

I get Linsanity. I’ve cried watching Tiger Woods win a major golf championship. Jeremy Lin, for now, is the Tiger Woods of the NBA. I suspect Lin makes Asian Americans feel the way I feel when I watch Tiger play golf.

I should’ve realized that Friday night when I watched Lin torch the Lakers. For Asian Americans and a lot of sports fans, his nationally-televised 38-point outburst was the equivalent of Tiger’s first victory in The Masters. I got caught up in the excitement. I tweeted about what a great story Lin is and how he could rival Tim Tebow.

I then gave into another part of my personality — my immature, sophomoric comedic nature. It’s been with me since birth, a gift from my mother and honed as a child listening to my Godmother’s Richard Pryor albums. I still want to be a standup comedian.

The couple-inches-of-pain tweet overshadowed my sincere celebration of Lin’s performance and the irony that the stereotype applies to pot-bellied, overweight male sports writers, too. As the Asian American Journalist Association pointed out, I debased a feel-good sports moment. For that, I’m truly sorry.

That’s a weak apology from Whitlock, and it really isn’t much of one. He doesn’t address the racial stereotype from his tweet which is what many people found extremely inappropriate. The issue isn’t really that he “debased a feel-good sports moment,” but that one of the industry’s leaders on race in sports used a racial stereotype to discredit a professional athlete. That’s what he should have apologized for, not for ruining the story.

Shortly after Knicks point guard Jeremy Lin went for a career-high 38 points to beat the Lakers Friday night, FOXSports.com writer Jason Whitlock sent this tweet:

Whitlock may be able to spin the tweet since no names were named, but nearly everyone who saw it viewed it as a racist joke about Asian penises made against Jeremy Lin.

For someone whose entire writing schtick is based on stirring the racial pot, that was about the dumbest thing he could have said. It will be interesting to see if he gets reprimanded for the tweet, spins it, or apologizes for it. No matter how you view it, Whitlock’s credibility on racial issues just took a major hit. I thought Whitlock preached that we shouldn’t deal in stereotypes, right?

The next day, Whitlock wrote this apology for his joke.

Since then, MSG, ESPN mobile, Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, and now Stefon Diggs have ventured into the racially offensive areas concerning Lin.

The Rock — a.k.a. Dwayne Johnson –  is set to make his WWE return this April in a highly anticipated match with John Cena at Wrestlemania XXVIII. Apparently wrestling fans are super excited. The event also happens to be set in Miami, where Johnson played college football. Knowing this, Sportscenter decided to have The Rock on for a promotion on Thursday afternoon. Either he has never watched a live edition of Sportscenter before, or Johnson just felt like ruffling some feathers. He swore a total of three teams in a segment that lasted a few minutes. Check out this video of The Rock swearing on Sportscenter. Obviously, the language is NSFW.

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Believe me, we do everything in our power here at LBS to not feed the beasts that are Stephen A. Smth and Skip Bayless.  Both guys are annoying, and we generally try not to talk about them unless one of them flips the other one off. Well, that happened on Thursday morning’s ESPN First Take. The above screenshot comes to us courtesy of @BDPFOLIFE. If you don’t believe it actually happened, we’ve got the NSFW shot waiting for you after the jump.

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