Dan Patrick frequently talks about his former employer, ESPN, (aka the “Mothership”), on his nationally syndicated and televised radio show, but he doesn’t often go after them as much as he did on Friday.
Patrick was upset that ESPN Radio morning talk show host Colin Cowherd seemed to rip him off without giving credit, and he called him out for it.
What happened is Patrick interviewed Kurt Warner on Thursday morning and asked the former quarterback-turned-analyst if he would want his children to play football given the dangers of the sport. Warner said he preferred if they didn’t, and was called out by another player for his opinion.
According to Awful Announcing, Cowherd had Warner on his show later in the morning (audio here). He started off the interview asking about the same subject.
“You know, Kurt, yesterday on the tragic death of Junior Seau one of the first things I thought about was the effect it’s going to have on the game long term and mothers and fathers saying, ‘you know what, I’m out.’ There’s no way I want my kids playing this game. You’ve got kids, where do you fall on that Kurt?” Cowherd asked.
Patrick viewed that as Cowherd trying to piggyback on a subject Patrick raised, but without giving Dan the proper credit. After Patrick called out Cowherd on his show Friday (audio in the video above), the ESPN personality responded to people questioning him over Twitter. Cowherd played dumb.
@Uuuumaganever heard his show once…not once.
— Colin Cowherd (@ESPN_Colin) May 4, 2012
@BlakeSmith2012 @dpshownever heard it once…ever. danny is not on the radar.
— Colin Cowherd (@ESPN_Colin) May 4, 2012
@danny232425 dan talks a lot about espn in his show apperantly. I talk a lot of sports. Just different approaches
— Colin Cowherd (@ESPN_Colin) May 4, 2012
Cowherd could be telling the truth when he says he hasn’t heard Dan Patrick’s show, and I wouldn’t doubt him. Here’s the thing: He doesn’t have to listen to the show to know if something of significance was said on it. Awful Announcing points out that ESPN was running the quotes Warner gave Patrick all throughout the day, and crediting “The Dan Patrick Show” for them. It’s quite possible that Cowherd saw that, piggybacked on it, and tried to present it as his own. It’s also entirely possible that Cowherd just thought of the question on his own.
I worked in national radio for nine years and can tell you that some organizations refuse to credit their competitors. Sometimes I would credit competitors for a scoop because I felt it was the right thing to do, and I was called in by bosses and told not to. This is the way national radio organizations operate, so it’s not a surprise if Cowherd intentionally didn’t give credit.
If you’re a regular LBS reader, you know we’re big on credit. We frequently “hat tip” other blogs or people if we happen to see a story on their site or through their Twitter feed. It’s the right thing to do. Sometimes we’ll happen to publish an obscure story from an obscure source 30 minutes after a competing blog does, and it looks like we grabbed the story from them without giving credit. I can tell you that no matter how much it looks like we got it from them, if we didn’t give a hat tip, it’s because we saw it and were working on it and just happened to publish a little later. What’s my point? It’s possible Cowherd was thinking about asking that question on his own.
Still, nothing tops Dan Patrick going after ESPN.
“I’ll take on the empire. And I like my damn chances.”
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