ESPN Takes a Dipp

 

Does the name Sergio Dipp mean anything to you? If it doesn’t, you’re neither on social media nor a fan of the National Football League. But last night, Sergio became the temporary center of the Twitterverse for this performance:

This was in the second game of ESPN’s Monday Night Football doubleheader. Because there is no Monday game in Week 16, the network gets two games for Week 1, which also means there is a one week hodgepodge production team thrown together. They’ve used the occasion in the past to hype various projects and talent such as Mike & Mike. This year they decided to make some political statements. Of course they did.

Beth Mowins (ESPN)

First, they chose Beth Mowins for play-by-play making her the first woman to call a regular season NFL game on national television in 30 years. Quite frankly, I have no problem with that. Mowins is a pro. She works hard and comes prepared. She asks questions and doesn’t pretend she’s played the game. She’s toiled for years calling the most meaningless Big Ten games the network could find for noon kicks on ESPN2. She has more than paid her dues. (And she starts calling regional CBS games starting September 24 in a network talent-sharing agreement. If working with Rex Ryan last night wasn’t punishment enough, CBS is going to make her watch the Cleveland Browns.)

Enter young Mr. Dipp. Just 29, Dipp is a Mexican national who has worked for ESPN Latinoamérica since 2013. (Not to be confused with ESPN Deportes, their domestic Spanish language channel.) The producers decided that his topic would not be the game but the politics of the game, that is, a pregame prayer to the Gods of Diversity. And, of course, immigration.

His performance was so embarrassing he never returned to the air after the open.

But this wasn’t a job Americans won’t do. Think of the amount of talent they had to eliminate for Dipp to become their best bad option. In their springtime talent purge they axed a lot of people who either played the game or know their way around the sidelines. Folks such as Danny Kanell, John Clayton, Jerome Bettis, Dr. Jerry Punch, Ed Werder, and Trent Dilfer. All of whom would not be trying to report in their second language and none of whom would have been persuaded to talk about anything other than the game.

ESPN got exactly what they deserved.

Addendum: Someone pointed out to me that I may have been unfair to Mr. Dipp on his “diversity” comment. Perhaps that is a fair assessment. He may have only been referring to the coach’s diverse experiences. Quite frankly, it was such an incomprehensible mess that I don’t know where he was going with that. So I will concede the point. 

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  1. Muleskinner Member
    Muleskinner
    @Muleskinner

    JimGoneWild (View Comment):
    1st Amendment states: Football shall make no political observations respecting an establishment party, or prohibiting the free excise thereof; or abridging the freedom of sports, or of the media, or the right of the people peaceably to watch football, and to petition the cable carrier for redress of grievances.

    Petitioning my cable carrier always results in more grievances.

    • #31
  2. The Whether Man Inactive
    The Whether Man
    @TheWhetherMan

    Doug Watt (View Comment):
    The NFL, let’s see it takes about 3 to 4 hours to play a game. Constant replay reviews. Oh yeah, we have the “first down dance”, the “I sacked the quarterback dance”, “I broke up the pass play dance”, and of course the “touchdown prom”. Consists of 1 to three players dancing, and 5 others applauding the dance. Then there is “I’ll take a knee dance”, warm up for that dance take place during the national anthem.

    ‘Course, none of that is terribly different from college football these days. And the last few college games I went to, they didn’t bring the players out until after the anthem, sidestepping that whole question.

    I have no problems with women announcers if they know their stuff, like Beth Mowins. The poor Dipp guy was clearly unprepared for the big league, but I agree with the addendum that his comment was clearly talking about the diversity of the coach’s experience. Which, let’s face it, is routine filler.

    • #32
  3. Wolverine Inactive
    Wolverine
    @Wolverine

    I prefer CF to the NFL but the games are way too long. Being the reactionary Neanderthal that I am, I would prefer no female announcers as I consider it trespassing on men’s space, but if we have to have them Mowins is a great choice. Does anyone remember Phyllis George?

    • #33
  4. PHenry Inactive
    PHenry
    @PHenry

    I watched the game, and for third stringers, Mowins and Ryan were OK.  However, it became clear very early on that they considered the fact that the Bronco’s had a rookie coach who was black the most important part of the game.  He was shown over and over, while I think I only saw the coach of the chargers once all game.  Then when Dipp came on, it was clear that he was just over the moon about how wonderful the new coach of Denver was.  I think he wanted to point out the victory for diversity that this new coach represented, but he started out talking about the coach’s diversity.  Well, it is pretty hard for one person to have much racial diversity, so he had to add ‘he played quaterback AND defensive back’ or whatever it was he said proved the coaches ‘diversity’.  I think most of us knew what he meant.

    Then the most embarrassing part to me was ‘Look at him!  He is having the time of his life!’ as if this novel black coach was just trilled beyond words to be allowed to coach a team in the NFL.

    It showed more about the mindset of ESPN then most seem to have noticed.  Apparently, despite a black NFL head coach no longer being so unusual, ESPN thinks it is the most remarkable aspect of the game.

    Meanwhile, the rest of us were just interested in how the new coach would perform, and his melanin content was the last thing on our minds…

    Make no mistake, though.  With a woman announcer, a Hispanic sideline reporter with a loose grasp on the English language, and their inordinate attention paid to the race of the new head coach, ESPN thought this was a great victory for diversity in the NFL.

     

    • #34
  5. EJHill Podcaster
    EJHill
    @EJHill

    Robert Lipsyte coined one of Howard Cosell’s favorite words – the jockocracy – to describe former athletes who found themselves in the media without “earning it” by getting a degree in journalism. I used to think he was correct but mainly because I had a degree in my field. Now, I believe that to be slander.

    Here’s why: More and more people are “demanding” changes in sports for political reasons totally unrelated to the game or the safety of the athletes. Sorry, folks. If you haven’t played (or are currently playing) you are not the guardians of the game. Don’t tell me Colin Kaepernick has to have a job, because he doesn’t. It’s not a birthright. Don’t tell me the “unwritten rules of baseball” are bull crap because you personally cringe at a 95-mph fastball to the ribs. (“Ooooo, Peggy! Those brutes are fighting!”) I don’t care about your agenda or your opinions.

    • #35
  6. Kozak Member
    Kozak
    @Kozak

    I’ll watch ESPN only to watch an actual game if I have no other choice. Otherwise I avoid it like the plague.

    Everything from sports to the Miss America Pageant, to disaster relief telethons has to be politicized by the Left, so I just tune out more and more.

    • #36
  7. MJBubba Member
    MJBubba
    @

    So, without watching the broadcast, it is clear that social justice politics is still a high priority for ESPN, and most of this latest dustup is simply because the sideline reporter kept saying “diversity” when the much more commonly used term would be “versatility,” thereby displaying that, at least in English, he is much more comfortable with the jargon of social justice politics than with the jargon of football.

    • #37
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