Watching ESPN today you surely will have noticed that the Tim Tebow New York Jets press conference was shown live on the network.
After that, highlights were run all day. Special segments were shown on Sportscenter. Quotes ran across the ticker at the bottom of the screen. It was a lead topic on “Pardon the Interruption” and “Around the Horn”. The nicknames were flowing, from Timsanity to Tebow Takes Manhattan to Timhattan and Tebowmania. They counted the amount of times that Tebow said the word “excited” or “exciting” during his Jets press conference. It was 45 times.
Television sports shows and newspaper columnists feed us timely news, information and opinion based on what’s important, as well as what fans what to see. So, if sports fans want to see the Tebow New York Jets press conference and dissect its every facet and detail, then fair enough, as Tim Tebow equals ratings.
The most hilarious development in our 24/7 news cycle and 10-second attention span society today though is the trend of the people doing the reporting bashing what they’re doing, while continuing to do it anyway. It’s something that we’ve seen with Tim Tebow, Tiger Woods and Jeremy Lin, to name a few such hot topics. (Anybody remember Linsanity? Remember, the guy on the cover of Time magazine and two-consecutive Sports Illustrated issues?)
All throughout the Tebow Jets press conference coverage, and the entirety of the Tebow saga over the past few weeks, the talking heads on ESPN would say how out of hand all of this was.
They would comment on how it was way too early to be forecasting Tebow and the Jets, and gauge Mark Sanchez’s performance for next season… then they would do it.
They’d say how it was crazy to be covering a press conference for a backup quarterback, or even holding a presser for the backup to begin with… before cutting to their exclusive wall-to-wall coverage provided by dozens of onsite reporters who wrote, recorded and photographed every second.
They’d complain about how the story is the most over-covered and obsessively followed story not only today, but perhaps in sport’s history… as they provided the bulk of the over-coverage and bashed us over the head with the story until all we could mutter is “Tebow… more… need… more… Tebow…”
The easy solution to the problem of Tebow getting too much hype and coverage – and this is shocking – is to stop being the ones who give him all of the hype and coverage! And if you’re the one driving the car, then stop complaining about it while you’re doing it.
Now, I wonder what Tim Tebow will have to say tomorrow about the reaction to his press conference today. I’m sure I’ll find out.
Sources: Nonstop ESPN Tim Tebow coverage
This article was first published by Jake Emen on Yahoo! Sports on March 26, 2012.
