The mixed martial arts (MMA) world is still reeling from recent footage released by TMZ showing UFC President Dana White slapping his wife at a Cabo San Lucas nightclub on New Years Eve. outside of our combat sports bubble, the incident generates very little mainstream traction. Other than light web coverage, UFC broadcast partner ESPN didn’t feature much of the story.
Some of that silence can be attributed to the full coverage of NFL player Damar Hamlin, who went into cardiac arrest on the field during Monday Night Football and remains in critical condition. But, in the last episode of Dan Le Batard’s showLeBatard wonders if his former employer (ESPN) will end up covering the story as it should.
“I’m curious how ESPN will cover the Dana White news and the video of him slapping his wife at New Year’s Eve festivities, apologizing, saying there’s no excuse, saying he had drunk,” he said. “If it had been Roger Goodell or an owner of an NFL team, I imagine it would have been covered with great zeal, even though ESPN is an NFL corporate partner.
“In this case, Dana White is the most famous person in the sport, even with all the fighters, because he is the face and the voice of the sport,” LeBatard continued. “If it isn’t, it’s close. And we’ve talked before, it’s not even the crime, it’s the size and fame of the criminal.
“How does ESPN cover this one?” he added. “Because usually with these things if there’s mainstream media and video pressure – and ESPN is the most capable of applying mainstream media pressure, but they have a partnership, an uncomfortable partnership with Dana White, who ran away from the only real reporter they had in the sport, Ariel Helwani, and we caught up with him because Dana White has a lot of power at ESPN – how is this story going to be covered, how is this story- it supposed to be covered?
LeBatard co-host Jon Weiner (aka Stugotz) also doubted ESPN would bring the story back once Hamlin’s story cooled.
“When they get to the story, I’d like to think they’ll cover it like they’ll cover any other story of this nature,” Stugotz said. “The problem is there’s a major partnership, and I know that well enough to know that they probably won’t cover it like they should because of that partnership.”
“It doesn’t stay in the news feed unless there’s media pressure,” LeBatard said. “There’s got to be media pressure, there’s got to be outrage for this to have any consequences. They’re the world leader in the sport and they tend to help how it goes and they are compromised here by a commercial interest.
“Because I don’t think there will be any consequences to this because there can be no consequences unless the level of outrage stays in a place that is so powerful, so independent, and can even control in to some extent the media monster who he has a partnership with.
“So I don’t know what the consequences will be of a video of you slapping your wife at a party,” he added. “You slap her back, because of the fight you got into. Never mind your wife’s quote about how out of character it was. Usually, this video, for a person of power, is extremely harmful, anywhere in sports – everywhere in sports.
“But, this guy is working on his own plane, with an outfit and power that doesn’t come with a lot of governance,” LeBatard concluded. “Like who’s there to punish him?” And if that happened with Goodell or a landlord, can you imagine it would be quiet? Because I don’t. I don’t think if we had a video of that it would be silent.
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