Earlier today, the live daytime episodes of SportsCenter once again relapsed into an episode of TebowMania.  Much to the surprise of nobody who has observed ESPN over the last year and a half, SportsCenter went all in on Tebow, dedicating almost half of their airtime to a man who faces a struggle just to make another NFL roster.

But this morning in particular was distressing because ESPN remained with Tebow as their lead story in spite of other highlights and a story that is garnering national attention - Jason Collins being the first active athlete in the four major pro sports to come out.  In spite of the positive steps ESPN has made in the last several months journalistically (their new sourcing policy, coverage of the Boston Marathon, etc.), today showed there was still a sense of warped priorities in Bristol.  In other words, Tebow still trumps all.  It took several hours for Jason Collins to replace Tim Tebow as ESPN.com's top headline and the 12 PM ET SportsCenter mentioned Tebow's name 25 times before it did Collins' once.

On his ESPN Radio show today, evening SportsCenter anchor Scott Van Pelt let it be known he wasn't happy with talking about Tim Tebow as his "One Big Thing" and called out his brethern at the daytime edition...

We're seeing a pretty good response to the news of Jason Collins coming out as gay in this week's issue of Sports Illustrated. Mike Francesa of WFAN in New York isn't one of them. On his radio show today, Francesa said he "doesn't care" about Collins coming out, and that the announcement was a "dramatic attempt to sell magazines". He also repeated the phrase "I don't get it" several times.

Correct Mike, you don't get it. We know there are plenty of gay people in America. That's not news. Francesa even touched on the fact that gay athletes hadn't come out in the past because they didn't feel comfortable, so there's no reason for them to be forced out. Collins wasn't forced out, and the fact that he was finally comfortable enough to come out *is* a big deal.

Just because there have been retired gay athletes in the past doesn't dim the importance of Collins' announcement. Imagine having a personal detail about yourself potentially affecting the rest of your career. That's the situation Collins is in now, and if you don't understand why that's a big deal, I don't know what to tell you.

[Business Insider]

The Milwaukee Bucks made the playoffs this year for only the second time since 2006-07. The NFL draft takes place each and every year. But that didn't stop the vast majority of sports fans in the Milwaukee area from tuning into the draft last Thursday, rather than Game 3 of the Bucks' first-round series with the Miami Heat. 

Monday, April 29

Washington Nationals @ Atlanta Braves (ESPN 7PM) Dave O’Brien, Aaron Boone, Rick Sutcliffe

Tuesday, April 30

Cincinnati Reds @ St. Louis Cardinals (MLBN 8PM) Bob Costas, John Smoltz [Alt: Padres @ Cubs]

Wednesday, May 1

Washington Nationals @ Atlanta Braves (ESPN 7PM) Sean McDonough, Mark Mulder, Doug Glanville

*McDonough in the booth, Mulder & Glanville in each team's dugout.  

Thursday, May 2

Washington Nationals @ Atlanta Braves (MLBN 7PM) Bob Costas, John Smoltz [Alt: Marlins @ Phillies]

Friday, May 3

Boston Red Sox @ Texas Rangers (MLBN 8PM) Local Broadcast [Alt: Cardinals @ Brewers]

Saturday, May 4

Baltimore Orioles @ Los Angeles Angeles (FOX 4PM) Joe Buck, Tim McCarver, Ken Rosenthal
St. Louis Cardinals @ Milwaukee Brewers (FOX 4PM) Justin Kutcher, Eric Karros
Washington Nationals @ Pittsburgh Pirates (FOX 4PM) Howard David, FP Santangelo
Los Angeles Dodgers @ San Francisco Giants (MLBN 9PM) Local Broadcast [Alt: D-backs @ Padres - 8:30p.m.]

Sunday, May 5

New York Mets @ Atlanta Braves (TBS 1:30PM) Brian Anderson, John Smoltz
Los Angeles Dodgers @ San Francisco Giants (ESPN 8PM) Dan Shulman, Orel Hershiser, John Kruk

H/T Sammy!

Lamar University, located in Beaumont, Texas, is in the midst of its inaugural softball season. Head coach Holly Bruder went on ESPN Radio 97.5 Houston last week to talk about her program. The radio hosts, Dave Tepper and Jerome Solomon, asked some less than conventional questions.

What's interesting is that before asking Bruder about her players' looks and physical attributes, they first asked her about the controversy surrounding CBS Houston's article questioning whether or not an OKC cheerleader was too fat. Bruder responded that she was "pretty hefty" for a dancer. But that's a different conversation for another day. (What's in the water down there in Houston, anyways?)

Tepper goes on to ask her if she has any "Jenny Finch looking girls" that he can come watch. Then he kind of just really goes off the rails - mentioning Lamar could sell more softball tickets if the players wore less and recruited Kate Upton, among other things. Here's the full audio from the Beaumont Enterprise...

April 29th, 2013 will be remembered as an important day in American pro sports as Jason Collins came out in a Sports Illustrated exclusive as the first active gay athlete in the four major sports.

It will not be remembered as the day the New York Jets replaced Tim Tebow or the day after the 8th seeded Los Angeles Lakers were swept from the NBA Playoffs.

And yet, if you watched ESPN in the minutes and hours after the Collins story was published, you would have thought the reverse was true.  It took SportsCenter 45 minutes after the news hit at 11 AM ET until Chris McKendry broke into a "live" episode of Tebow/LakersCenter with a thoughtful interview with LZ Granderson on the Collins story at 11:45 AM.  The 12 PM ET SportsCenter had another McKendry interview with SI's Jon Wertheim and statements and reaction from around the NBA, but that was sandwiched between in-depth Tebow and Lakers coverage, which dominated ESPN airwaves.  Tebow's release led that episode of SportsCenter, and each live edition that preceded it Monday morning.

In fact, Tim Tebow's name was mentioned 25 times on the 12 PM ET SportsCenter before Jason Collins.  Mark Sanchez was mentioned 10 times before Collins' name was.  Kobe Bryant and Dwight Howard both garnered 14 mentions before the Collins story was acknowledged at 12:17 PM ET.  

The network needed to deliver more perspective and should have listened to their most respected journalist and anchor, Bob Ley.

Today, Jason Collins came out to the world. Not only that, he did so exclusively and in the first person to Sports Illustrated. Collins is currently an NBA Free Agent and has been a center in the league for 12 years, but is the first active player in major American professional sports to be openly gay.

He writes:

The biggest storyline as far as the coverage of the NFL Draft heading into the 2013 version was the commotion about NFL insiders tipping picks.  After a couple years of reporters like Adam Schefter beating television with their reports, ESPN and the NFL Network came to an agreement to not spoil picks ahead of time on television.  No tweets.  No insider flashes.  No draftees on phones in the green room.  In truth, ESPN and NFL Network were listening to the fans as a wide majority wanted to first hear the selections from the podium.  Both networks by and large held firm to that strategy over the three days of the draft and kept fans happy by preserving the drama of those announcements for their viewers.

But tipping picks on television and tipping picks on Twitter should be two separate things.  Just because ESPN hid Adam Schefter's blackberry didn't mean picks weren't being tipped by others.  A number of NFL reporters NOT working for ESPN and NFL Network were free to try and do what they always do - break news.  One of those individuals was Jason La Canfora of CBS, who was under no pressure, edict, or moral obligation to stop doing his job to protect the television product that is the draft.  He even warned followers last Wednesday:

To all the Tweets about people unfollowing me, I have a job to do and if you dont want the info, that's cool. I get it. No one has to follow

— Jason La Canfora (@JasonLaCanfora) April 24, 2013

I'm not trying to win votes and for every person unfollowing, others will want the info. It's about reporting info, not silly Twitter count

— Jason La Canfora (@JasonLaCanfora) April 24, 2013

La Canfora also tweeted the link to an interview at the Sherman Report that specifically said he would be tweeting any and all draft information (aka tipping picks) as often and as soon as possible...

How will I approach covering the draft Thurs nigh, including on Twitter?:shermanreport.com/no-restriction…

— Jason La Canfora (@JasonLaCanfora) April 24, 2013

At this point it should have been clear that La Canfora would be trying to have the draft picks before television viewers.  And it was a great situation for him with his top competition (Schefter, Mortensen, Glazer) not engaged in tweeting picks.  La Canfora had the breaking news space almost to himself, which at any other time of year would be a reporter's dream.

Nevertheless, throughout the entire draft, people on Twitter were angry at Jason La Canfora for doing what he said he was going to do.  Very.  Angry.

Thankfully, we haven't heard too much noise lately from the Bristol underworld kingdom of First Take.  Tim Tebow's NFL career being on life support and the brilliant play of LeBron James have worked against two of the show's long-standing pillars - that Tebow is a winner and James is not.  Instead of building a show on a solid foundation of insight and analysis, ESPN built First Take on the shifting sands of Skip Bayless and his brand of carnival barking and now the show will wander through the wilderness until Bayless finds another pantomime villian or hero to sink his teeth into.

But make no mistake, First Take is still an abomination and this must still be recognized by the public at large.  The New York Post did just that as First Take earned the dubious distinction of being named one of the 20 worst shows on television by the tabloid.  Keep in mind this declaration is coming from the New York Post, which isn't exactly a beacon of journalistic integrity, so it should carry double the dosage of shame:

It's a black day in Bristol as the New York Jets released Tim Tebow the day after the NFL Draft.  Normally, a team releasing a third string QB would not be worth DEFCON 1 status, but this is ESPN, and this is Tim Tebow.  There were air raid sirens going off in Bristol, Connecticut once the news broke and ESPN swiftly relapsed into full blown TebowMania coverage.  That relapse gave the internet the gift of once again mocking ESPN for its TebowMania coverage.  And that never gets old.  As always, these are Real Tweets from Real People...