San Francisco 49ers owner Jed York
Credit: Kirby Lee-Imagn Images
News that San Francisco 49ers owner Jed York was arrested on prostitution charges in East Palestine, Ohio, first broke at 10 a.m. ET on Monday morning.
Not long ago, this kind of story would’ve been a five-alarm fire for any 24/7 live sports network. But on Monday, as the sports world eagerly awaits the start of football season, it was treated as an afterthought.
In the two hours after the story initially broke, ESPN failed to address York’s arrest in any meaningful way. First Take did not mention the arrest, despite being on the air for over an hour after reports first surfaced. When Pat McAfee came on the air, he alluded to York’s arrest at the top of his show, but largely in jest. A subsequent segment with ESPN’s top NFL insider Adam Schefter included no discussion of the story, except for a brief tease that it happened before McAfee asked Schefter about a different 49ers storyline: George Kittle’s injury.
One NFL media member, watching the Schefter segment on McAfee, told AA, “I could see [Schefter’s] asshole puckering,” when McAfee teased the story before asking about Kittle.
Meanwhile, FS1 was stuck in a re-air of Wake Up Barstool during the first 90 minutes following the breaking news. When Colin Cowherd’s radio show came on, the FS1 host led with his planned monologue and briefly mentioned he’d discuss the news later in the show.
CBS Sports HQ seemed to ignore the story entirely, instead running through the top NFL storylines of the day.
Now, we can all acknowledge that the days of Bob Ley and Roger Cossack anchoring breaking news coverage are long gone. No one is expecting wall-to-wall reporting on York’s arrest. But to ignore the story completely is a disservice to viewers. There’s an obligation for these networks to at least inform viewers about one of the biggest news stories in the NFL. A quick headline read. A minute or two to explain what is known, what is next, and what this could mean for the 49ers.
It wasn’t that long ago that New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft was charged with two misdemeanor counts of soliciting prostitution. That story, which broke in February 2019, certainly got its due on ESPN and FS1. Just seven years later, the obligations of sports television have completely changed.
It’s easy, of course, to point towards the perverse incentive structure present between the NFL and its network partners. ESPN, Fox, and CBS all pay billions of dollars per year to air NFL games. It’s the most important programming these networks air, and it is quite literally the financial engine that keeps these networks afloat. As of this year, the NFL even owns a piece of ESPN. These networks have every reason in the world to treat a salacious story about one of the NFL’s 32 owners as something smaller than it really is.
And that’s certainly part of the calculus. Networks should remain in the NFL’s good graces. But I’d be remiss not to mention that these decisions could also reflect changing preferences among sports television viewers. Fewer and fewer consumers turn to ESPN or FS1 for up-to-the-minute sports news. Social media is far better suited to covering these types of stories, and those who want to dig deeper can find an article on The Athletic or ESPN.com (though both outlets took over an hour to post stories following the initial report of York’s arrest)
Linear television has become more about the hang and less about providing real-time information to viewers. There’s an argument that viewers tuning in to First Take, The Pat McAfee Show, or The Herd would rather hear discussion about whether the Cleveland Browns made the right decision in naming Deshaun Watson their starting quarterback than news about the 49ers owner being arrested.
The issue is that viewer preferences serve as a convenient excuse for outlets to avoid doing their jobs. It took two hours after the initial story broke for Adam Schefter to post anything on social media about York’s arrest. NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport hasn’t directly mentioned the story on his social media feeds at the time of this writing, only reposting a report from ESPN’s 49ers beat reporter Nick Wagoner. These guys will report that the Chargers’ WR3 rolled his ankle in practice about two seconds after it happens, but it takes them hours to report on an NFL owner’s arrest? And in Schefter’s case, he can appear for an entire segment on McAfee without so much as acknowledging the story?
That’s a conscious decision, and whether it is about self-preservation, the company’s business interests, or simply serving viewer preferences is beside the point. Reporters report the news. Ignoring a story of this magnitude is hard to excuse.
We’re just asking for the bare minimum: an acknowledgment that it happened. So far, the biggest sports networks and the biggest personalities they employ have failed to do even that.
WBD Paramount
WBD Paramount