As ESPN launches ANOTHER TEBOWCENTER this morning at 11 ET, we have asked you throughout the week for your feedback on Tebow and the media and more specifically, ESPN's Tebow obsession. Good timing. But hey, I suppose everything is justified because ESPN says Tim Tebow is the world's most popular athlete according to ESPN and Tim Tebow has increased ratings which means Tim Tebow is the world's most popular athlete.
As I said on Twitter, I commend ESPN for horrifyingly exploiting Tim Tebow to boost ratings. I commend them for turning an average QB into a real superhero. They should take full credit in making him the most popular athlete in America. But while they tout those numbers, they lose credibility with their core audience. Much like The Decision, the tradeoff of respect for ratings isn't worth it for ESPN. As a sports fan and a fan of ESPN and even a fan of Tim Tebow it is frustrating and disappointing. But don't take my word from it, others have strong opinions too. Has the media obsession changed or influenced your opinion of Tim Tebow? What follows are reader e-mails from with their thoughts on Tim Tebow and ESPN. As always, these are real e-mails from real people...
For me, the media hasn't done a whole lot to change my opinion of him. They've doubted him going into every week, then sung his praises to the extent that he becomes overrated after each win. He gets overrated after every game for a day or two, then underrated going into the next game. They flip-flop to the point that it's tough for it to affect me. To me, social media has influenced me much more. Tebow has become less of a football player than he is an internet meme, a social symbol. Everyone collectively freaks out about him on Twitter and Facebook. He's a common discussion topic, even if we don't all agree on his merits as a player. The debate about Tebow isn't about his QB play anymore, it's about what you think of him and what that says about you as a person.
Stephane Hardinger
As a Broncos fan I hated the Tebow draft pick, and his move to the starting role. I didn't think he'd do anything of worth. After his (very) rough start and the media's initial destruction of him though, I started to feel terrible about how he was being treated. For a guy who has yet to have an offseason as the starter, he needed some time to adjust. I don't mean to go all Gundy on you, but he's certainly a guy that does everything right in his preparation and with his attitude. The deification of him since then has gone way overboard, but I don't think that's fair to have the media's obsessive coverage of him affect someone's view. It's one thing to be like the Jets, putting out soundbytes on a daily basis in an attempt to gain recognition. It's quite another situation when it doesn't seem that Tebow has changed how he's humbly handled himself.
Zack G.
I never had any reason to like/hate Tim Tebow, but over the last two years I've taken the position that I want him to succeed ONLY because I want the media to choke on all the crow they'd have to eat. I've come to the conclusion that all these people who analyze him incessantly must be insanely jealous of him - its kind of like bullying: you hate on people to feel better about yourself. It seems like these media types don't seem to have any ability to cover or learn about anything else and so they just keep on the Tebow Beat: they either aren't smart enough so they have to keep repeating the same three takes (kind of like a politician), or they're too lazy to cover a different story...
