On Mon, Oct 26, 2009 at 12:37 PM, Kevin M. <[email protected]> wrote: > > I don't follow sports, or sports reporting, beyond the Tour de France > and Olympic female beach volleyball. Can someone explain to me why > Letterman and the sports guy are treated differently? Instead of > extortion, it sounds like some sort of threats (or implied threats) > were made against the sports guy and his soon-to-be ex-wife. And, > granted Letterman's affairs occurred before marriage (though he'd been > dating his now-wife for years). But one guy gets a hero's welcome > while the other guy gets a trip to a wacko-basket? One guy keeps his > job while the other guy gets fired? What am I missing here?
I will let your assertion that Dave has received a hero's welcome pass for the most part, except to note that a simple google search will reveal a large number of stories criticizing him pretty harshly. Gawker, which I think also owns Deadspin (the sports blog that has gone after ESPN - see below) has been as merciless in its treatment of Letterman. There are a number of pretty important differences. Some of them are: 1. (Perhaps most important) is that Phillips was an at will employee of ESPN, while Letterman is not an employee of CBS. Dave owns a production company that has a contract with CBS to run his program (well, I am saying that with more confidence than I really feel, and you probably understand this better than I do. But Letterman through WWP has a much different kind of relationship with CBS than Phillips did with ESPN). There really is very little that is similar about Phillips relationship to ESPN and Letterman's to CBS. More similar would be if ESPN decided to stop showing NFL football because so many star players have sex with cheerleaders. But ESPN would never do that, and CBS would never stop running Letterman because of his fornication, unless either began to negatively effect the bottom line, which brings us to #2. 2. Letterman's behavior has not (so far) significantly reduced his financial value to his partners at CBS, while Phillips behavior has reduced his value to ESPN. In their statement announcing the firing, ESPN said Phiilips ability to represent ESPN effectively had been "significantly and irreparably damaged" by revelations about his affair with Hundley. (http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1932286,00.html?cnn=yes for this and other details). 3. Related to this is a simple fact: Letterman is very good at his job, Phillips was only marginally good at his. If Letterman ws one of 5 talk show hosts at CBS who got barely profitably ratings, then perhaps the recent news would have been enough to have the plug pulled on his show. If Phillips was one of the biggest moneymakers at ESPN, he probably would have survived his problems. I don't think it is a big surprise that people who are really good at their job, and hard to replace, have problematic behavior tolerated by their bosses or partners more than people who are not that good, and easy to replace - in just about any line of work. 4. Phillips has a history of inappropriate sexual behavior with employees at his last job (New York Mets), which was a fairly big scandal then. His current gig at ESPN was already a second chance. 5. Phillips's attorney is floating the excuse that Phillips basically is a sex addict, and Phillips has now entered inpatient treatment for these issues. 6. Phillips was married (as you note) and his wife has filed for divorce. What has really surprised me during the Letterman affair is how many people keep saying it doesn't matter than Dave wasn't married. I think that is pretty much all that does matter, but then I am married and value marriage highly (that is in case my wife is reading my email). On another aspect of this story, interesting piece in Time.com about Deadspin's role in all of this: http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1932286,00.html?cnn=yes There was a thread a few weeks ago here about the vendetta Deadspin has for ESPN, and this story has really brought it out - so much so that Deadspin is now widely seen as having crossed the line into unprofessional rumor mongering - which is nice because I thought the blogs has already erased that line. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
