Posted on 08/21/2006 2:01:05 PM PDT by mainepatsfan
NFL to discuss Gumbel remarks
Future with network up in air after harsh criticism
Posted: Monday August 21, 2006 1:59PM; Updated: Monday August 21, 2006 2:30PM
NEW YORK (AP) -- The job status of Bryant Gumbel, scheduled to be the play-by-play broadcaster on the eight late-season games on the NFL's in-house network, could be the subject of a discussion by NFL officials after Gumbel's suggestion that Paul Tagliabue show his successor "where he keeps Gene Upshaw's leash."
Tagliabue said Monday that incoming commissioner Roger Goodell and Steve Bornstein, who runs the NFL Network, will discuss the remarks after Goodell takes office Sept. 1.
Gumbel addressed his closing remarks on HBO's Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel last Tuesday to Goodell.
"Before he cleans out his office," Gumbel said. "Have Paul Tagliabue show you where he keeps Gene Upshaw's leash. By making the docile head of the players union his personal pet, your predecessor has kept the peace without giving players the kind of guarantees other pros take for granted. Try to make sure no one competent ever replaces Upshaw on your watch."
Tagliabue's response: "What Gumbel said about Gene Upshaw and our owners is about as irresponsible as anything I've heard in a long time."
Upshaw did not immediately return a call placed by The Associated Press.
However, a number of owners have said that they thought they had given away too much to the union in a last-minute six-year contract extension that added almost a billion dollars in the league's contribution to the players.
And Upshaw told the AP several weeks ago that he was able to get more from the owners than he had agreed to just a few days before the owners finally agreed on the new deal.
(Excerpt) Read more at sportsillustrated.cnn.com ...
When I'm watching the Patriots I always turn down the television and listen to their radio broadcast. It's far superior than any of the network guys. I suspect that's true for most teams as well.
I think the NFL should do some market research to see what the fans think. If they do that he's toast.
In that case, I'm glad in a perverse way that the Packers stink enough to not have the #1/#2 (which is CBS calling the Gumbel/Dierdorf team?) announce teams do their games.
On top of that the Packers are only on CBS at most twice a year so your odds at avoiding them are pretty good.
But this time Gumbel bad mouthed a black guy, gonna make it hard for the race card to stick.
http://newsbusters.org/node/4057
HBO's Gumbel: Lack of Blacks Makes Olympics 'Look Like a GOP Convention'
Posted by Dave Pierre on February 16, 2006 - 01:58.
There were some eye-opening remarks from Bryant Gumbel on the most recent episode of HBO's Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel. According to a transcript posted by a television columnist named Seth Frelich, Gumbel said the following in his closing monologue last week (emphasis mine):
"Finally, tonight, the Winter Games. Count me among those who don’t like them and won’t watch them ... Because they’re so trying, maybe over the next three weeks we should all try too. Like, try not to be incredulous when someone attempts to link these games to those of the ancient Greeks who never heard of skating or skiing. So try not to laugh when someone says these are the world’s greatest athletes, despite a paucity of blacks that makes the Winter Games look like a GOP convention. Try not to point out that something’s not really a sport if a pseudo-athlete waits in what’s called a kiss-and-cry area, while some panel of subjective judges decides who won ... So if only to hasten the arrival of the day they’re done, when we can move on to March Madness — for God’s sake, let the games begin."
Video clip (31 secs), from the Real Sports originally aired February 7, as provided by the MRC's Brent Baker: Real (885 KB), Windows Media (1 MB) or MP3 audio (185 KB).
The comments have received scant coverage, with the San Francisco Chronicle (in a betting column) and The Columbus Dispatch (in a "People in the News" column) among the few outlets that have even mentioned the episode.
Kudos to radio talk-show host Larry Elder for highlighting the remarks.
Gumbel's remarks have been followed by many angry posts at HBO's Real Sports Bulletin Boards. The story was also picked up at Free Republic, where one poster wrote, "Remember what they did to Rush over the McNabb remark. I will contact HBO."
You'd think these remarks would have received more attention than they have. (Well, maybe not.) It's just hard to imagine a Bill O'Reilly or Sean Hannity getting a pass on something like this. Don'tcha think?
Flashback: MRC: "Bryant Gumbel: Liberal Activist Masquerading as Impartial Journalist"
Those 2 will probably be covered by the Packer preseason duo of Kevin Harlan and Rich Gannon. That leaves 14 games of Scott Graham and Bill Maas, otherwise known as Fox Hell. Maybe if we're lucky we'll get Matt Vasgersian (I do have good memories from when he did Milwaukee Brewer games).
When the Patriots were awful back in the early 90's I swear it seemed like Don Criqui did every single one of their games.
That's a black guy complaining about too many white people, in the PC world that's OK, in the PC world anybody can complain about white people (though white people shouldn't complain about being unable to "identify" with an event because there's too many white people, it would just be silly). With saying Gene Upshaw is on a leash now Gumbel is complaining about a black guy, with a remark that kind of harkens to slavery, while that's PC OKish (though if Upshaw wanted to he could pull a McNabb and call it "black on black crime", but he's smarter than that) it pretty much removes his ability to pull the race card if the NFL busts him for it.
The annoying part about this is that he'll now get a lot of airtime to complain about how the racist NFL didn't want a black guy doing game commentary.
Be pretty hard considering his brother does it for CBS.
Upshaw should volunteer to go on Gumbel's show for a one on one interview.
Only if he gets to demonstrate proper run blocking technique on Gumbel ;)
The hilarious part is pretty much everybody thinks the NFLPA won this last round of negotiations, they got a lot out of the league with no serious chaos. A few years ago maybe the criticism could have stuck, Gene has negotiated some "soft" deals in the past, but not this year.
No problem, he'll just say it was Tagliabue's "slave-owner" mentality and how he beat down Art Shell over the years...or words to that effect. Face it, Gumbel still has a job despite the fact that he's an arrogant ass and has burned every bridge he has crossed. Take a wild guess as to why that is. This guy knows how to play the system. This is not the first "insensitive" comment he's made and it won't be the last. I hope they call his bluff this time...but I doubt it.
You know how much libs love unions that go on strike. Ignore how labor peace has contributed to the VAST improvements in the league's bottomline, which has grown player salaries by a lot more than whatever they "lost" due to Gene's concessions. Guys like Gumbel don't understand the point of a union that doesn't go on strike every other contract.
Same here when I watch the Deadskins. I'd much rather lsiten to the radio call of the game.
Pretty sure the lib media would look past that, especially because Gumbel is one of their own.
Gumbel's jobs have been on a downward spiral for a while. He used to be one of the big dogs on morning broadcast TV, now he's on a subscription cable network and a digital cable single sport channel (maybe, it'll largely depend on what Gene says privately I think). His game playing ability hasn't been so hot the last few years.
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