Why Was ESPN Ignoring Jason Collins?

Longtime NBA center Jason Collins came out of the closet on Monday as the first openly gay active player in a major team sport in the United States. This was a huge story that was at the front page of nearly every American news website, save one, ESPN.

ESPN, the “Worldwide Leader in Sports,” spent hours this morning discussing Tim Tebow and every other possible subject under the sun besides Collins’ announcement. As Deadspin’s John Koblin notes:

Well, for about two hours, it basically didn’t mention Collins’s announcement. The 1 p.m. edition is finally acknowledging the story, but watch the video above to get a sense of how things were moving along on live editions of SportsCenter and First Take as the news broke. The noon SportsCenter wasn’t any better. The temptation to go long and hard on Tim Tebow, the Lakers, and the NFL draft—it was all too much to pass up on. An active NBA player coming out of the closet? And doing so in the pages of a rival outlet? That could wait.

Even though ESPN waited to acknowledge the story, it still buried it for another hour. As Dylan Byers at Politico fingerwags:

This is a historic moment in the history of American sport, at least according to Sports Illustrated, which put the exclusive on the cover of this week’s issue; to users of social media, where traffic to the story has eclipsed that of the New York Jets’ decision to waive quarterback Tim Tebow; and to ABC News, which has just booked Collins for an interview that will air Tuesday on “Good Morning America.”

It seems to be of less significance to ESPN, which has buried the story on its website with a small link on the sidebar (see above). ESPN.com’s NBA page has also buried the news underneath an article about the fate of the Los Angeles Lakers. ESPN’s SportsCenter has mentioned the news half a dozen times on air, including a segment dedicated to the story, but even that has taken a backseat to stories on Tebow and new NFL quarterbacks, among others.

Eventually, ESPN acknowledged the story and is giving it a full court press but the network’s initial reluctance seems strange. After all, this is a very big deal. But ESPN ignored it at first, not out of homophobia or prejudice, but for what seems to be a far more basic reason; it didn’t get the scoop.

Collins made the announcement on the front page of Sports Illustrated, one of the few all sports outlets that has been able to survive the relentless onslaught of ESPN. Thus, the network didn’t want to play up a rival’s scoop—particularly when it came the same day as the New York Jets releasing Tim Tebow, which is the type of story that ESPN has dominated in recent years.

No journalistic outlet likes being scooped but ESPN needed to take its medicine on the Collins story. It’s not fun getting beat on a story but you can’t pretend it never happened and ignoring it won’t make it go away. Hopefully, ESPN will learn that lesson in the future.

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