I'm almost ashamed to admit I was not one of the hundreds of thousands of people that decided to follow Miss Alabama/Miss College Football Katherine Webb on Twitter in the wake of this week's BCS National Championship Game.  Had I been one of the masses, I may have caught this tweet Webb sent Thursday that she quickly deleted about a photo shoot with Sports Illustrated:

Let's connect the dots here.  Why would Webb delete the tweet if she was merely shooting for a story on Alabama's National Championship and her instant celebrity?  SI's Swimsuit Issue is notoriously top secret about the exact details of their shoots and the magazine would be foolish not to try to capitalize on her instant national celebrity.  (Of course, she could have deleted it because of the extra "ed" at the end of "Blessed.")

A potential Katherine Webb appearance in the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue makes the fallout from Brent Musburger's famous comments and apology from ESPN all the more puzzling.  The national controversy that emerged over comments about the beauty of a beauty pageant winner and professional model got way out of hand.  Brent Musburger admiring Katherine Webb was not Bob Costas opining on the gun culture in America.  Sports Illustrated, like ESPN, like the Today Show, like the websites that will publish ANYTHING with her name in the title, like everyone else in the media, will try to benefit as much as they possibly can from Katherine Webb's attractiveness and newfound fame.  We're all in this together.

[Speleb]

Comments are closed.