It’s official: Cycling is still not a main stream sport in the United States. It doesn’t matter how many people you see on the road riding. It doesn’t matter how much Jeff Novitzky‘s crusade to bring down Lancey Pants is in the media. We still don’t exist to most Americans. That’s fine, I don’t really have a problem with that. What I do have a problem with is the talking heads on ESPN’s “Around the Horn” mocking Flecha and Hoogerland for getting hit by a car in stage 9 of the Tour. I have watched that crash repeatedly and not once have I considered laughing. Maybe my expectations are too high for a show with such a huge audience. Maybe I am over reacting to what was said. Either way, it made my blood boil when I heard it. If you have been cycling for any amount of time, you have either been hit by a car or know somebody that has. Every time that I have been hit, I have walked away. But I have friends that have not been so fortunate. I know people that have been seriously injured, like our own Big Jonny, and now live in daily pain, or other friends that are now permanently disabled. I have even experienced the unfortunate reality of knowing two people that have lost their lives while riding. Never once have I considered laughing.
I mentioned this topic on the DC Facebook page and it generated enough response that I thought a full on post was warranted. I am not much of an angry letter writer, but I did just that yesterday. I would encourage you to listen to this show’s pod cast and decide for yourself if it is worth sending an email. It doesn’t have to be irate or mean, I just want to let ESPN know that we are out here, we are listening, and we didn’t approve of what we heard. The stupidity starts around 13 minutes in:
“Does it make me a bad person for laughing every time I see that crash..” –Michael Smith.
Hey Mikey, it sure does, and around these parts it makes you the number one douchebag. Would you laugh at an NFL player breaking his neck in a tackle? An MLB player getting hit in the face with a fastball? What about an NBA player breaking his ankle coming down from a dunk? Didn’t think so.
ESPN contact info:
E-mail:
ath@espn.com
General Customer Care E-mail.
* Update from Granny in the comments: you can write their ombudsman
Snail mail:
ESPN
Attn: Around The Horn
ESPN Plaza
Bristol, CT 06010
Walt is long dead. His head stored safely away. Or so some idiots say.
Disney is a piranha corporation.
Petition signed, and tweets sent, but good luck changing their minds.
There is a thread on this over at cyclingnews forums. One of the people there has listed all of the sponsors of the show.
The thread is here:
http://forum.cyclingnews.com/showthread.php?t=14480
The sponsor list is here:
http://forum.cyclingnews.com/showpost.php?p=597380&postcount=99
I think you will get a lot further going after the sponsors where the real heat comes from. I was surprised and disappointed to see on the sponsor list Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals and Jostens. Two organizations that deal with kids – kids that ride bikes.
+1 on the sponsor angle. Follow the money.
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Get off your high horses people. There is no way that ANY of you have never said or done something similar to that in your lives. If you actually WATCHED the show, you would know that he was not laughing at the rider getting hit, but at the fact that the driver drove off. I am a biker and a bike mechanic and in no way am I laughing at the situation that happened in the tdf, but you guys are taking this waaaay too far. So someone said something that offended you big fucking deal get over it. When did we become a nation of such fucking pussies that anytime someone says something that offends anyone we instantly want them fired and try to drag them over hot coals. Seriously, it is time for you people to harden the fuck up.
+1 for Nick
Wrong answer.
I don’t care when people say stupid shit. I do care when people say stupid shit that can potentially get me killed.
Speaking of high horses…
” I do care when people say stupid shit that can potentially get me killed.”
Holy crap…now the comments might kill you. Proving Nick’s comments about what this Nation has become.
hey tough guys(nick and yoro)…please see above “Would you laugh at an NFL player breaking his neck in a tackle? An MLB player getting hit in the face with a fastball? What about an NBA player breaking his ankle coming down from a dunk? ”
It is not something that would happen with one of the big three sports why would it happen when a cyclist gets hit by a car? The size of their audience and the amount of influence they have on non cyclists is huge. I just expect more. If Brett Favre tripped over a barbed wire fence then started the game the next day and won..people would be naming their kids after him for years to come.
Cyclists as a community have to stick together. If we don’t speak up about something like this now, then when? When another person dies or gets put in a wheelchair? At the risk of sounding “like a nation of such fucking pussies”, I’m going to have to disagree with you guys.
D2, I truly do understand why you are hypersensitive about the subject, since you said that you have been hit more than once and been very lucky to be alive. I have been lucky enough to avoid being hit in my commuting to school and work. That being said, I do feel like everyone is overreacting here. The great thing about the country we live in is that we are allowed to have opinions and express them with minimal to no worries. As of late, we as a population have fallen out of that and everyone is too concerned with being politically correct and too worried about offending a person, community or culture and it truly irritates me that our basic freedom of speech is being impeded by overly sensitive people. It is ok to be outraged, offended and pissed, it really is. But to try to ruin a mans lively hood because of a comment, not an action, is way more out of line then what he said. I seriously doubt that one remark made by a sportswriter will potentially get you killed.
Ok db, both guys who went down got back on, so neck breaking isn’t even close.
Nick,
Good points, but I still disagree.
This guy has a bully pulpit from which to spew his uninformed and potentially dangerous comments. Some dumbass listening to him might be encouraged to hit a cyclist because it seems socially acceptable to do so the more guys like Michael Smith desensitize people to it.
Believe me, I agree with you that there’s too much infringement on freedoms of speech, but this is not one of those cases. He has a microphone in front of him and thousands and thousands of listeners who will hear that and agree with him. That, to me, is dangerous, and I don’t want to end up on the hood of a car because some uneducated, ignorant, road-rage asshole decided, hell, Michael Smith might just be right. Fuck these cyclists. I’m takin’ him out.
YoRo: you ever been hit by a car? Fallen off your bike? I bet you have no idea how close you were to breaking your neck even in a minor fall. Me vs. Car: Car always wins.
we all talk about freedom of speech and i’m a believer of the right to free speech. Let’s not forget FREEDOM COMES WITH RESPONSIBILITY AND CONSIDERATION FOR OTHER PEOPLE. say what ever you want without any thoughts or consideration for other people on TV? i’d call it insensitive, obnoxious not freedom of speech. and Michael Smith’s words are his actions, that what he does for living
D2, You have every right to disagree and I do respect your opinion, but I would make the argument that if someone is stupid enough to make a decision like that because of what they heard someone else say then there are more issues with that person then we know. I try to be optimistic about people that in general if one found themselves in a situation like the one you just stated they would make the right decision and just let it be rather than run someone down. That being said, there are just some sick people in this world and would probably run down a cyclist just because they are crazy, not so much because of what they heard from a sports columnist.
YoRo – you are addressing the point of whether it matters more in that 1) you, the viewer in the confines of his comfortable living room thought there was a reasonable chance the victim might suffer a serious or life threatening injury, or 2) that victim himself thought he could be killed. I think it is far to easy to sit here on Monday morning after the game and say, hey, no blood, no foul. I do not think that is the appropriate conclusion to draw from this.
We have your statement. Now compare that with what Johnny Hoogerland said:
And, to balance your
daft commentaryconclusion with that of another spectator to the incidence, granted one with a vested interest in the outcome, Johnny Hoogerland’s father, compare it with the statement of Cees Hoogerland regarding the fence post:The point is this was a serious incident. The fact that both of these men were hard enough to get up and finish the stage in no way minimizes the severity of the incident. It just means that they are two damn tough bastards. This isn’t a case of no blood, no foul. This could have been a lot worse than it was. To dismiss the very real possibility this incident could have been a homicide is to sit and laugh like those clueless bastards on ESPN. We cannot excuse violence done to cyclists as entertainment. This is part of the culture of blame which minimizes the concerns of all cyclists. Me, you, and our children. We deserve better than this.
Sure, Nick, agreed again. But you’re discounting personal responsibility on the part of the commentator who took it upon himself to belittle a potentially life-threatening situation in front of an impressionable audience of thousands or millions.
He has to answer for his own actions, just as any person behind the wheel of a car would. Personal responsibility for all parties involved…
D2, do you really want a list? Multiple busted helmets, multiple concussions, some suspected broken bones, plenty of blood, road-rash and almost no knees left. Comes from all sort of things: Racing, big jumps, motorcycle wrecks, kayaking, soccer, football, wrestling, work, car wrecks, drunken stupidity, getting old, power tools, etc.
I’ve been swerved at, cut-off threatened, spit at, punched, kicked, choked, etc.
I have been under a car once and thrown in to traffic in a bike crash (a car stopped about 5 feet from hitting me) and plenty of other stuff.
I could go on and on and give detail but I’ll spare everyone.
I’d say close to 100% of the time I was with friends, someone laughed at me.
I don’t think injuries are funny but I do like watching crashes. The crashes often make people heroes and demonstrate human strength in a way that might never otherwise be seen.
I think the energy spent on the espn douches is wasted…spend it on stuff like the accident in Boulder a couple of weeks ago that did kill a cyclist.
Me vs Car? I try to not ride on roads at all anymore…when I do, I keep it to roads with wide shoulders and low speeds and I still don’t feel safe.
I’ll admit I laughed at people getting hurt when I was younger. That whole “It’s only funny till someone gets hurts, then it hilarious” kind of thing.
But I’ve been hurt enough times to realize it ain’t hilarious. Not with me or anyone else.
It’s called growing up.
How old is this TV guy ?
YoRo: my point exactly. How many times could you have been killed? Would you want someone standing by encouraging a guy in a car to hit you again?
<>
I don’t live my life thinking about that, so my answer is no idea.
and…
Again, radio banter is a waste of energy.
Right on, YoRo.
But I do think about that stuff. So I’ll make a big deal about it. You can go do whatever you think is worthy of your energy.
Fair enough.
Dirty Biker says: “Would you laugh at an NFL player breaking his neck in a tackle? An MLB player getting hit in the face with a fastball? What about an NBA player breaking his ankle coming down from a dunk? ”
But let’s just go ahead and be honest with ourselves and acknowledge that we do laugh at such situations, even when they are cyclists, so long as they aren’t “our” kind of cyclists.
http://drunkcyclist.com/2011/05/23/this-guy-takes-a-hit-like-lance-armstrongs-career/
FWIW I’m with TripleF above. I’ve outgrown laughing at people who break their bones in our sport or any other. But given our track record I see Nick’s point, and am a bit surprised more of the DC readers don’t as well.
The original question was posed to the man on the television whose job it is to provide editorial on sports. The “would you laugh…” statement is to show the hypocritical nature of his actions, while he was working, just because cycling is not a mainstream sport.
I’m still not laughing.
I sent ESPN an email yesterday but I also sent one to Nestle. They advertise on ESPN and also market products to cyclists.
I’d say all the bitching is pointless. I sent that video link to a dozen “friends”(who all know I ride) and most laughed at it.
http://www.leenks.com/link366689.html
And that site has the crash under their “Funny” icon.
Lost cause.
just one more…http://robertbkidd.blogspot.com/2011/07/speaking-for-everyone-on-bus.html
Ok crybabies…get your pens (err email) ready…
Versus is using the video of the crash for advertising…that’s right, they are trying to pump up the ratings and profit from this horrible act.
Certainly you pompous pontificators will want to write to versus and tell them how immoral and wrong they are. Good Luck.