Don Surber
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Friday, December 23, 2022
20 people attend Brittney Griner’s homecoming!
Congratulations to Disney’s ESPN for setting an American record in journalism by burying its lead in a news story. Assigned to cover Brittney Griner’s homecoming in Waco, Texas, home of Baylor University, ESPN reporters Elizabeth Merrill and M.A. Voepel unleashed 72 paragraphs of background before getting to the actual story they were assigned.
Paragraph 73 said, “Brittney Griner’s Homecoming was celebrated Monday night in front of 20 people at University Baptist Church in Waco. Baylor is on winter break, and a few of the people who were supposed to attend were sick. The church livestreamed the event.”20 people.
That’s it.
In a town of 139,594 people where Griner was a big star for Baylor. She gave the school a national championship.
Only 20 people showed up.
This shows two things. First, Americans do not much care about women’s basketball. If they did, thousands would have shown up if only to get her autograph.
Of course, if women’s basketball were important in America, she would never have gone to Russia. She would have stayed here and played in a real league instead of the WNBA, which is a summer league. Griner got four times as much to play in Russia than she did in the USA.
The second thing the story shows is that despite journalists going all in on her side of the story — and Putin really is a rotter who just used her as a pawn — the public does not see her as a victim of anything except her own stupidity.
It does not help her that she chooses to look like a stoner. If she were Simone Biles, we would have sent the Navy SEALs in to free her. Looks matter. Oh, pot is now legal in most places but I have some unsolicited advice for potheads. Booze is legal too and if you look like the town drunk, no one much cares about you.
ESPN reporters Elizabeth Merrill and M.A. Voepel had terrific story: only 20 people showed up for Griner’s homecoming. The story made Not The Bee.
Among the 20 people who showed up was Baylor’s current women’s basketball team coach, Nicki Collen, who told ESPN, “I didn’t coach her, but I wanted people to know we care. That this community cared, that Baylor cared, Baylor women’s basketball cared. And the fact that she’s home, we did what we set out to do.”
And of course, Baylor doesn’t care. Few people do. It’s women’s basketball. And she looks like a stoner.
Maybe Elizabeth Merrill and M.A. Voepel led with the 20 people angle and some dumbass editor relegated that part of the report to the bottom of the story. Disney and ESPN are tethered to the WNBA and only 20 people showing up for her homecoming makes the WNBA look irrelevant.
But the league is irrelevant and even Brittney Griner cannot save it.
Only 20 people in Waco cared enough to welcome her home. ESPN was too embarrassed to admit this truth.
Posted by Don Surber at Friday, December 23, 2022
