Michael Sam is losing ESPN’s Jason Whitlock now that his reality-show deal with Oprah has come to light:
Oprah and her foundering TV network do not care about X’s and O’s. They care about salacious and sensational human drama and the kind of XOXOXs that take place in the bedroom. For context, OWN is the documentary-series home for Lindsay Lohan, the child actress-turned-serial drug-rehabber. That is not written to suggest OWN does not do and aspire to do high-end TV journalism (Lance Armstrong interview). It’s written to imply that even Oprah’s standards cave to the demands of Nielsen ratings.
Michael $am undermines the credibility of Michael Sam.
It all feels orchestrated now: the draft-day kiss; the cake-covered face; the tears; the celebration that conveniently captured just Sam, his boyfriend and his two agents; and even the “Stand with Sam” T-shirts selling onmichaelsam.com.
Who knew a reality TV show was being filmed? Who knew Sam’s agents (Cameron Weiss and Joe Barkett) and publicist (Howard Bragman) had cut deals to be producers on the reality TV show?
This is all scripted and amateur. And devious, too.
Michael Sam, the football player, is being used … by everyone. Weiss, Barkett and Bragman are cashing in. Oprah is hoping an attachment to the NFL can breathe life into her network the way the league does for CBS, Fox, NBC and ESPN. The LGBT movement appears to be more concerned with Sam advancing the cause than making the roster. And, yes, the cause is more important than football. But playing football advances the cause a lot more than Real World St. Louis.
And Gregg Doyel of CBS Sports offers up similar criticism of Sam’s decision:
Sam is generating Tebow-like noise, and Tebow noise will get a guy cut. Ironic doesn’t begin to describe the similarity between Tebow and Sam, but both have more gravitas as a social experiment than as a football prospect. Tebow is the devout evangelist, hero to the conservative Christian masses, and that’s where the noise came from. It came from both sides, from those who love him and his worldview, and those who are offended by it. The noise was too much, but the noise wasn’t Tebow’s fault. He did a commercial here and there, and he talked about his faith all the time, but he never asked to be ground zero of the growing debate in this country about religion and its place in sports. We did that to Tebow, not vice versa.
Michael Sam? He’s doing some of it to himself. Certainly noise was going to happen around Sam regardless, even if he hadn’t kissed his boyfriend after being drafted, live on ESPN and then in a picture posted to Twitter of him kissing his boyfriend’s cake-smeared face. Michael Sam is the first openly gay player in the most popular sports league in this country: He doesn’t need any help generating noise.
But a documentary on the Oprah Winfrey Network? With cameras following him as much as the Rams will allow? That’s a lot of noise. That’s ear-splitting volume for a player who might be too slow to play linebacker and too small to play defensive end.
As a prospect, Michael Sam is a lot like Tim Tebow: Maybe he can become an eventual NFL player.
Maybe, because of the noise, he won’t be worth the effort.
I look at it a little differently. Sam, I think, knows his future isn’t in the NFL and he’s doing everything he can to use the NFL to help develop Michael Sam, the brand. The NFL is a business, and it’s a particularly merciless business on rookies drafted in the later rounds. The NFL uses its marginal players for its own gain every day. Sam is a marginal player who is using his likely brief time in the NFL to prepare for life after the NFL, and I’m OK with that. Sam is just protecting his financial prospects and making sure the spotlight is on him for as long as possible. That spotlight may hurt Sam’s chances of making the Rams, but it looks like it’s right move based on Sam’s talent level.
Of note, however, the Washington Post’s Jonathan Capehart has been on a tear criticizing those who dared criticize the big (and now we can suspect, scripted) draft-day kiss between Sam his boyfriend. Capehart wrote:
All Michael Sam wants is acceptance. And he shouldn’t have to apologize for or be skittish about reveling in a life-changing moment with the person he loves because of someone else’s “discomfort.”
Sam wants acceptance — and to get paid. And Sam is not only using the NFL to move his career forward, but also advocates like Jonathan Capehart. I do wonder if the LBGT community ends up feeling used by Sam when it’s all said and done.