For anyone who’s interested in knowing who Hope Solo is off the pitch, the media have certainly chronicled that. This past Sunday morning, Outside the Lines dropped the big bombshell of a story. It’s very curious timing by ESPN. OTL waited until the day before the U.S. Women’s National Team kick off their first 2015 World Cup match to air this take-down.
Why is that?
Earlier this week, they ran a propaganda puff piece on Hope Solo in ESPN the magazine; so the OTL piece the greater network counter-balance? Seems a bit bizarre.
It’s yet another reminder how ruthless, cutthroat and manipulative the sports media business truly is.
FOX has the World Cup broadcast rights, so they currently have more attention. ESPN then does something to try and bring attention back to them. It’s exactly like how Vanity Fair broke the Caitlyn Jenner story a week ago, so ESPN then decides to give Jenner an ESPY award and make the announcement of that award just mere hours after the Jenner story took off.
Again, peculiar opportunistic timing, and later it was revealed that the Jenner ESPY was nothing but a crass, negotiated, exploitative publicity stunt.
ESPN didn’t have the Jenner scoop first, so Bristol did something in order to bring eyeballs back to them.
Just like they did with Jason Collins. He came out in Sports Illustrated. ESPN didn’t break that story so they had one of their talking heads make some outrageous, socially backward comments about homosexuality.
Voila! Fake controversy gets more people talking about ESPN now instead of SI.
Questionable product rollout tactics aside, this is some really strong reporting by ESPN Staff Writer Mark Fainaru-Wada.
He is one of the best in the business. Actual sports journalism is quickly dying out, being replaced by “sports media.” Today, all four major sports networks are so embedded with leagues and teams that their business is promotion; not news.
Almost all of the time, sports network television acts as an extension of the leagues and teams’ PR departments. Most of what the talking heads say on your television sounds exactly like what’s written in press releases.
Not Fainaru-Wada though. He’s one of the last remaining purists doing actual reporting; and he does it very well.
FOX’s Alexi Lalas is really great at his job too. He’s one of the best homegrown American soccer commentators around.
Lalas says the Hope Solo’s teammates put up with her serious issues because she’s so talented:
“She is Hope Solo. She is the best goalkeeper in the world,” Lalas said.
“This is a situation that she created. It is a story, and we will talk about it, and it is relevant on and off the field what she does.”
“The women’s team reconciled a long time ago that while they may not like Hope Solo or want to hang out with Hope Solo, they want her on the field saving their you-know-what time and time again because of how good she is. And you will be amazed what professional athletes will put up with when you have a good player on the field.”
FOX Sports commentator Leslie Osborne says the USWNT won’t be distracted by the latest report on Hope Solo.
“There’s no distraction there. The team and Hope figured out their stuff before they got to this tournament. Being on the team with Hope before, in the 2007 World Cup, I’ve been on the team with her drama. You put it aside and you focus on one thing, and that is to perform at your best and win the World Cup.”
The drama Osborne is referring to could be when Solo undermined Briana Scurry, her predecessor as the starting goalkeeper back in ’07. That’s just one of the many things Solo has done over the years to alienate herself from her teammates. Reading in between the lines of Lalas and Osborne’s statements, it’s pretty clear that the rest of the team isn’t too fond of her.
The reasons are obvious: “drama.”
It’s pretty clear that the other options in goal for the USWNT must be much worse than Hope Solo if the whole program is willing to put up with this; and have been doing so for many years.
Paul M. Banks owns, operates and writes The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with Fox Sports Digital. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, currently contributes to the Chicago Tribune RedEye edition. He also appears regularly on numerous sports talk radio stations all across the country.
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