It Was A Rough Week For ESPN

ESPN's newest ombudsman hasn't even started yet, but he will have plenty of fodder for his first column after a tumultuous week that has seen the entertainment and sports juggernaut besieged from all sides. (Yes, including ours.)

First, one of the network's most recognizable employees becomes the victim of a heinous crime, forcing their legal department to chose between staying silent and praying that it goes away (unlikely) or attacking full throttle and exploding it into a nationwide story. (Yep, that's what happened.)

Then, the quarterback of the Super Bowl champions was accused of an even more heinous crime, forcing their news division to report on it and possibly embarrass an innocent man or stay silent and embarrass themselves. Once again, they chose the latter.

Then, they missed out on the video scoop of the year when TMZ, eBaum, and (*ahem*) our boss got into pseudo-bidding war over the the LeBron James dunk. A bidding war that it turns out, ESPN was a part of and lost (when they pathetically low-balled.)

All of this, of course, has lead to a pissing match with a scummy tabloid, insinuations that they may be employing the perverts, Dan Patrick's blistering of the network's executive editor, charges of corruption, favoritism, sexism, incompetence, and general relentless badgering from punks like us.

That's a lot of very tough decisions for an organization to have to make in one week. (One call a month of this magnitude would be hard enough.) You're not always going to get them right, and even when you do, people are still going to give you grief about it. There are definitely more legal fights and hand wringing to come from these assorted messes, but I guess that's the price you pay—and why you get paid—to be The Worldwide Leader.