Return with us to the not-so-halcyon days of October 2020.
The COVID-19 pandemic is wreaking havoc worldwide. The NFL is powering through a series of postponements and rescheduling. The Dodgers and Rays are barreling towards a World Series showdown. Amazon opened the door to streaming NFL games.
In the midst of what was already a weird time, NFL Network insider Ian Rapoport tweeted (it was still Twitter back then) that he had been suspended for two weeks for posting something that “went against [NFL Network’s] guidelines.”
pic.twitter.com/jdN1GceONW
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) October 10, 2020
Losing hours is detrimental to an insider. Losing two weeks of work must have been crushing. What could Rapoport have done to incur such a punishment? The wildest aspect might have been that it was truly unclear what he had done.
The initial speculation was that Rap had been dinged for reporting that the Tennessee Titans, who had been dealing with a massive COVID outbreak, were working out at a local high school in direct opposition to the NFL’s quarantine protocols. It seemed likely to many that the NFL would have preferred the story to simply slip under the radar, and Rapoport was being punished for turning it into a headache they had to deal with.
It was Andrew Marchand, then of the New York Post, who introduced a different —and way more ludicrous — scenario.
Story will be up a bit later.
Rapoport posted an ad for Manscape, which is to clean up your groin area, without approval and that is why he got nicked.
— Andrew Marchand (@AndrewMarchand) October 10, 2020
Not everyone was buying what Marchand was selling, and there were plenty of people who stuck to the Titans post as the much more logical culprit.
He didn’t get suspended for that Manscaped ad. He was suspended for the Titans workouts retweet. My speculation is that someone from the Titans got pissed and sent a scathing email to Goodell and the president of NFL Network and they used to razor company as a (man)scapegoat https://t.co/ZQLOMcRBdN
— Herb Lawrence (@Ecnerwal23) October 10, 2020
However, it turned out that Marchand was very correct. The offending video, in which Raporport promoted the Manscaped Lawn Mower, had actually been posted in mid-September. According to a since-deleted The Big Lead post, Rapoport was quoted as saying the product was “the perfect tools for your family jewels” and that “you don’t want any nicks when you’re cleaning up, you know, that area.”
While the video was deleted at some point soon after, NFL reporter Jane Slater had shared and commented on it. Rapoport responded, sparking a conversation thread that served as evidence.
I remembered that Ian replied to Jane Slater’s original tweet that linked to Ian’s manscaped promo vid. Here is Ian’s reply to that tweet, and Jane’s tweet is now deleted. Makes sense that the Manscaped ad is the reason for his suspension.
Sorry Ian. Oct 22 will be a good day. https://t.co/xLYmNrK0Jj pic.twitter.com/RMFIYVCUG3
— Yasin Abbak (negotiates everything) (@YouFoundYasin) October 10, 2020
“Sad that it took me reposting his ‘Manscape’ IG video for this to rise to this level of severity,” wrote Slater after news of Rapoport’s suspension broke. “To be very clear, I thought it was funny and I’m not ok with my friend and colleague getting punished for it under false guises of double standards.”
As Awful Announcing’s Ben Koo pointed out on that fateful day five years ago, Rapoport’s real offense was likely that he did an ad for a competitor of Gillette, which was an NFL sponsor at the time (though the 49ers had named Manscaped their official “Below The Waist Grooming Partner” earlier that year). The over-the-top suspension was presumably intended to send a message that there’s a lot you can get away with (and many around the NFL have), but not obtaining league approval before doing an advertisement was beyond the pale.
The whole ordeal was silly then, and it looks downright absurd five years later when sports media figures are speaking far more freely and often without consequence. It stands to reason that if something similar were to happen today, Rapoport might receive a reprimand or be asked to remove the video, and that would be that (even if we still think it’s weird that sports reporters do ads).
Ultimately, as one pun-minded Twitter commenter succinctly put it, the whole thing was bush league.