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ESPN Pulls Announcer from UVa Football Game … Because His Name Is Robert Lee
The man shown to the left is sportscaster Robert Lee. The man to the right is Confederate General Robert E. Lee. ESPN was afraid that viewers would mix them up.
Mr. Lee (the one who didn’t die in 1870) was scheduled to announce next weekend’s University of Virginia football game against William and Mary. This match-up will be hosted in Charlottesville, which has a statue of Gen. Lee (who never provided NCAA play-by-play). ESPN decided that this was far too confusing for their viewers to process. So, in a move not to further inflame the neo-confederate armies sweeping this grand republic, the network benched their announcer.
From the sports blog Outkick the Coverage, which broke the story:
But, seriously, is there anything more pathetic than ESPN believing people would be offended by an Asian guy named Robert Lee sharing a name with Robert E. Lee and calling a football game? Aside from some hysterical photoshops and Internet memes which would make everyone with a functional brain laugh — Robert E. Lee pulling out all the stops to stay in Charlottesville now! — what was the big fear here? Does ESPN really believe people are this dumb or that having an Asian announcer named Robert Lee is too offensive for the average TV viewer to handle?
Yes, yes they do.
When the story broke, the internet figured it must have been a joke. I mean, this had to be The Onion, right? But, early Tuesday night, ESPN confirmed the madness:
We collectively made the decision with Robert to switch games as the tragic events in Charlottesville were unfolding, simply because of the coincidence of his name. In that moment it felt right to all parties. It’s a shame that this is even a topic of conversation and we regret that who calls play by play for a football game has become an issue.
It only became an issue because ESPN made it an issue.
Note to any budding sportscasters out there: If your first name happens to be Stonewall, you might want change it, pronto.
Published in Culture, SportsHi, @espn pic.twitter.com/8nSrEdxZMK
— Chet Cannon (@Chet_Cannon) August 23, 2017
One thing that the Outkick blog studiously avoided: naming WHO would be offended (radical leftists), instead using the term “people”.
I would also accept the term “idiots”.
ESPN just doesn’t get it .
As Ben Shapiro frequently says: Every night I go to bed thinking it can’t possibly get any stupider….
Hey!! Don’t pick on Tommy Jackson! He’s my guy! Go Broncos! Uh…. what year is this?
Maybe ESPN subscribers should pull the plug on subscribing – it’s shaping up to be an interesting Fall sports season….
Interesting in that comment from ESPN:
“We didn’t make him. We asked him. Eventually we mutually agreed to switch.”
That word . . . “eventually” suggests it took some time. That there was reluctance on Robert Lee’s part. (Naturally.) But that he was “eventually” persuaded to see it the management’s way.
“It’s a shame that this is even a topic of conversation and we regret that who calls play by play for a football game has become an issue.”
As Jon said above, it only became an issue because ESPN made it an issue.
I really hope he lawyers up.
ESPN management insists that it commissioned a study about its subscriber loss and that it found no evidence that politics plays a part.
And it probably plays a smaller role than we want to believe. It has an almost antiquated business model hurt by economic factors, emerging technology and bad rights contracts.
However, they are determined to launch the network as a stand alone streaming service next year. It will either be a moneymaker or the biggest bust since their ill fated mobile phone venture from 2006.
Disney will also launch their own party entertainment streamer, too. To that end they have begun ending distribution deals with their future competitors like Netflix.
No. He’s just glad he has a job.
One thing about this is that thse games that are involved are scheduled to be on ESPN.com only. Most of the time these events aren’t even produced by ESPN. They provide announcers and minimum support. They’ve signed massive contracts with these conferences that call for the games to available somewhere, even if it’s just 4 cameras and the internet.
Easy solution: the broadcaster should add his middle initial. After all, I know not to see movies with “Michael R. Fox” or “Samuel N. Jackson”.
Uncanny resemblance……..
Guve the guy his job back. They should only eliminate those people whose name is Robert E. Lee.
?
Why, this is racist pure and simple. Pure and simple, I say. Announcing to the world that folks of a certain heritage don’t belong in sports – in any capacity. I do declare. ESPN has gone ’round the bend.
Lydick, you idiot. They’re talking about Confederate RE Lee. Trying to stir the pot under the guise of sensitivity.
Oh.
Never mind.
If they threatened him with his job in order to get him to agree, I hope he lawyers up as well. But there’s more than one way to be persuaded. Perhaps they offered him some kind of bonus or other perk in order to get him to agree, in which case, good for him for not caving to the pressure immediately. Either way, it does sound as though this decision came from the top down and not from him.
It was clearly racist to hire an Asian because they were worried about a hire scoring game and they wanted an Asian to exploit his facility with mathematics.
No tickey, no laundry. I think they should destroy the Abacus everywhere its found.
I wonder if R. Lee Ermey will ever work again?
Just a reminder that there are still good people in the world. Not everyone has been swept up in the reigning madness.
No SJW under 40 had ever heard of Robert E Lee before this week because their high school history textbooks only covered Harriet Tubman in the Civil War Era.
How did we get to the point where the focal point in American life is the sensibilities of complete morons?
Because this is the standard history text in Government-run schools:
Or changes his name to P. G. T. Beauregard.
I think that would be as foolish as the rest of this story. They didn’t fire Lee, they just switched who was going to announce which game, something they have every right to do. A dumb decision, but if every dumb decision an employer made went to court, you would have to increase the number of court building and judges by a factor of 20.
Hey! Radical leftists (think they) are people, too!
Unfortunately it is looking like what will be “interesting” this Fall sports season will have nothing to do with the actual sports.
It’s understandable that you found it confusing. Suspension of disbelief isn’t supposed to be required for the news.
The United Confederate Veterans monument erected by the Robert E. Lee chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy in 1926 in the same cemetery that Bruce Lee and Brandon Lee are buried in. In Seattle. Are you confused?
Here’s how demented (I don’t know a better word to describe them) the American Left is today:
Since the only people who have a problem with the name Robert E. Lee are on the Left – Liberals, Democrats, Progs, Leftists, BLM, Antifa – what ESPN (and CNN) are saying is that they, along with the rest of their Liberal brethren, are such hateful, hate-filled, violent, destructive totalitarians that if anything isn’t exactly as they want it, there will be violence. That Liberals are so infantile they might very well riot over someone’s coincidental name.
What a remarkable admission of the American Left’s contemptible nature, by the Left itself. Although to be sure, they’re not bright enough to realize that’s exactly what they just said.