Racist Bryant Gumbel - new NFL Network announcer

[Kiwon]

Be sure to circle Thursday, Dec.21, 2006 on your calendars. That's when the Vikes and racist Bryant Gumbel visit Green Bay. Gumbel and Cris Collinsworth were announced as the new NFL Network announcers.

Super smooth Bryant Gumbel a racist? Yeah, if you will recall in February that he complained on his HBO Real Sports show about how the 2006 Winter Olympics were going to be a sham because of the paucity of black athletes. I quote him:

"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."

Private schools in Chicago, private college in Maine, KNBC in L.A., NBC Sports, NBC News, CBS, HBO, now the NFL Network.....poor Bryant has been held down and deprived of opportunities all his life because of pervasive racism.

We should listen to him. He knows what he's talking about. We need an affirmative-action program for the Winter Olympics. Athletes shouldn't be accepted on the basis of nationality and talent only. That's unfair. There should be some racial quotas in place as well.

We'll have to check with Bryant to see what percentage is optimal. I'm sure that he'll have a ready answer.

The NFL Network is scraping the bottom of the barrel by signing Bryant Gumbel. He's an egotistical bigot who in the PC world of journalism keeps landing on his feet. I have no use for his polarizing racist blather and neither should the NFL Network.

[swede]

If I were a taxi driver I wouldn't pick him up. But it's not because of the color of his skin. It's because I consider him to be one of the world's top ten most annoying people.

[SkinBasket]

Thanks for ruining my day Kiwon.

[Kiwon]

Don't worry Swede, he'd reject you before you rejected him. He really is a racist pig that has skated through life saying outrageous things that other journalists would have been fired over.

The NFL Network wants to establish some journalistic credibility, but I think that they have hurt themselves by giving Bryant Gumbel yet another stage to spout his nonsense. Poor Brett Favre...Gumbel will probably nail him because he's white and from Mississippi. All those Mississippi white boys are bigots, you know.

[mngolf19]

I actually rode around with his limo driver quite a few times. (just happened to be the same one for my company) His brother, Greg used this guy as well. The driver said Greg is one of the best people he has ever met. But that Bryant was not only a humongous jerk, but was never on time, didn't tip, wouldn't pay his bill for months, and would never talk to him even though some of the rides he had were 2+hrs at a time.

[swede]

I actually rode around with his limo driver quite a few times. (just happened to be the same one for my company) His brother, Greg used this guy as well. The driver said Greg is one of the best people he has ever met. But that Bryant was not only a humongous jerk, but was never on time, didn't tip, wouldn't pay his bill for months, and would never talk to him even though some of the rides he had were 2+hrs at a time.

New talent!

Welcome aboard "mngolf"! Your post was great, but you need a better nickname. Do you mind if I just call you "Golf". Or maybe "A Good Walk Spoiled".

[Merlin]

I about barfed up my diet coke when I read that Bryant was going to announce NFL games. Great, politics and football, just what we need.

[mngolf19]

Thanks Swede. Remember, a good walk spoiled is better than anything at work. But yeah, Golf is fine.

[GoPackGo]

.::.

Gumble should put his money where his mouth is and create a winter olympic training facility for black people

[Harlan Huckleby]

It's not so shocking that people from cold climates dominate the winter olympics.

Has Gumbell forgotten already about the Jamaican Bobsled team?

a really ridiculous criticism, there are many economic/cultural reasons why more blacks play basketball than hockey.

[Kiwon]

I'm resurrecting this thread for a reason: Bryant Gumbel is a bigot and I expected that it would not take him long to spoil the environment for the average football fan. NFL Network....fire this loser now!

From USA Today (8/21):

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 strongly disagreed with the tenor of Gumbel's comments.

"I think things that Bryant Gumbel said about Gene Upshaw and the owners are about as uninformed as anything I've read or heard in a long, long time, and quite inexcusable because they are subjects about which you can and should be better informed," Tagliabue said.

Tagliabue was also asked if he thought Gumbel should remain with the network.

"Having looked at how other people have had buyer's remorse when they took positions, I guess they suggest to me that maybe he's having buyer's remorse and they call into question his desire to do the job and to do it in a way that we in the NFL would expect it to be done," the commissioner said.

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.

Gumbel, once the host of the NBC pregame show and later co-host of The Today Show, said when he was hired that no restrictions had been put on his ability to comment on what he sees on the field.

"It's a lot like covering any story," he said. "You see what is front of you and you report on it."

The two-year-old NFL Network will televise eight late-season games on Thursday and Saturday nights this season.
.................................................. ...........

[digitaldean]

The guy just does not have a clue. I do not understand why the NFL hired him in the first place (for the NFL Network games). What'd they expect?

This guy is probably the main reason I will have the radio on and the tv muted when he is on.

[Joemailman]

Bryant Gumbel is an egotistical jerk. That said, I don't think he's a racist. Words like racist get thrown around too easily these days. I don't think Gumbel thinks white people should be enslaved. I don't think Gumbel thinks white people should be denied the right to vote. Anyone who has been the victim of true racism knows there is a difference between true racism and insensitive stupid comments that people like Gumbel sometimes make.

[Rastak]

Bryant Gumbel is an egotistical jerk. That said, I don't think he's a racist. Words like racist get thrown around too easily these days. I don't think Gumbel thinks white people should be enslaved. I don't think Gumbel thinks white people should be denied the right to vote. Anyone who has been the victim of true racism knows there is a difference between true racism and insensitive stupid comments that people like Gumbel sometimes make.

I'm with Joe on this one.

[BallHawk]

More shit from Gumble. At least he may get fired for this.
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The Associated Press reports that outgoing NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue said on Monday that incoming Commish Roger Goodell and NFL Network chief Steve Bornstein will discuss after September 1 remarks recently made by Bryant Gumbel on his HBO show. Implicit in Tagliabue's comments is the possibility that Gumbel might be nudged out of his new job as play-by-play announcer for the NFL Network's slate of eight regular-season games.

Gumbel's gaffe? He publicly took a shot at the NFL and the NFL Players Association.

In closing remarks from last Tuesday's show that were aimed at Goodell, Gumbel said: "Before he cleans out his office, 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."

Gumbel also advised Goodell to "keep a close eye on the ugly owners' split that surfaced last March" and to "[g]ently remind those millionaires who gave you the job that they are already making obscene amounts of money."

Said Tagliabue in response: "What Gumbel said about Gene Upshaw and our owners is about as irresponsible as anything I've heard in a long time."

Our view? Gumbel's words are more ignorant than irresponsible.

If anything, the perception of late has been that Tagliabue was wearing the collar, and that Upshaw possessed the pooper-scooper. After all, the union successfully changed the formula for funding the salary cap by expanding significantly the universe of revenues that will be used to determine the team-by-team spending limit. The union also pumped up the salary floor, which in some cities is more important than the salary cap, since a low floor permits teams like the Cardinals to enhance their profit margin by keeping player costs to a minimum. And there's a strong sense that the union stuck it to the NFL as to the non-economic terms, such as the restriction of bonus forfeitures and the elimination of the ability of teams to pay a troublemaker to stay home.

Also, Upshaw's primary flaw (as we see it) hasn't been that he's allowed himself to be pushed around by the NFL, but that he has given high-profile agents like Tom Condon (who coincidentally represents Upshaw) far too much influence over the manner in which the NFLPA does its business. As a general proposition, the rank-and-file players would love to get rid of the lottery prizes paid to the first handful of guys drafted each year, since those windfalls to unproven players can otherwise go to veterans who have scratched and clawed a career in pro football. But because the agents who routinely represent one of more of those Powerball winners don't want to give up their cut of deals that are worth multiple millions of dollars, the union pretends that it's not an issue.

Likewise, the union never has pushed for fully-guaranteed player contracts, which are now prevalent in all other major league sports. Why not? In our view, the high-end agents realize that guaranteed contracts would result in less cap space for those huge signing bonuses. Plus, guaranteed salaries would wipe out the bogus back end numbers that appear in many superstar contracts, and that the agents then use as bait for the next wave of potential top-ten draft picks.

Gumbel's comments also are stoopid because he has taken a reckless hip shot at the 32 people who each own a piece of the network for which he'll be working. Don't get us wrong on this. Gumbel's willingness to say what he thinks reflects a high degree of integrity, and his desire to stir things up is a rarity in a media populated by so many folks who are afraid to tell the truth. However, saying what you think has as much value as the bark of a teacup poodle if what you're saying is incorrect.

Sure, all of the owners are making money. But if the extra millions in unshared money earned by the big-market teams are going to drive up the salary cap for the franchise that can't and never will realize that kind of revenue, the imbalance could eventually impact the on-field level of competitiveness. That's why the issue is so important, despite the fact that the folks who'll be most affected by its resolution will continue to be filthy rich.

You'd think that Gumbel would be smart enough to figure that out. He surely thinks that he is.

There's a difference, then, between "telling it like it is" and "spouting off about issues you don't fully understand." In our belief, the courage to be candid should be rooted in a confidence that the criticisms offered are correct.

So in Gumbel's case, his biggest sin wasn't speaking his mind. It was allowing his mind to be made up based on an inaccurate assessment of the available facts.