Web sportznutz.com

 
April 14, 2008

Speaking of Sports

Saturday I was once again reminded of what a singular sporting event means to our area.

Tampa resident Antonio Tarver headlined a mega-boxing card at the St. Pete Times Forum and you could hear everyone from hither and yon extolling the financial windfall Tampa and the surrounding areas would garner.

A week ago it was the NCAA Women's Basketball Final Four and not long before, the NCAA Men's first and second rounds made their way through the same venue.

Lots of visitors. Lots of wallets. Cha-ching went Tampa Bay. Rarely do these kinds of sports drop into our lap and the region will host Super Bowl XLIII next February 1.

If we were to depend on just the local teams, the Buccaneers, who carry the brunt of sports revenues, the Rays and Lightning and to a lesser degree the Storm, Tampa Bay would be just another town with professional sports.

Fortunately, we are more than that and a primary reason why organizations, promoters and anyone who want to put on a show knock on our door so frequently.

A number of Super Bowls have called Tampa home and the focus is mostly on the game, players and the cha-ching mentioned earlier.

There was a Stanley Cup here once, an Arena Bowl that sold out and countless other events visiting like church revivals hitting small town America.

There is a lot to like about Tampa Bay. Well, maybe not.

Because there is so much at stake, including advertising dollars, rarely, if ever, do newspapers, radio or television do anything to project something other than a positive image.

When it came to the Tarver-Woods, Dawson-Johnson fights, you never heard about the sport's underbelly, the seedy sometimes ugly part of boxing. Not a good way to sell tickets and draw people who eat up hotel rooms and restaurant tabs.

With the NCAA Men's it was the beginning of a near month-long tournament that could be the greatest show on earth, depending on your point of view. 

Come Super Bowl time it's the game, players and the hype that goes along with the biggest one-day championship on the planet.

So why then did the Tampa Tribune and St. Petersburg Times, the two voices of Bay sports, choose to make the NCAA Women's visit feel like it was dirty - or worse.

Both papers and one's free tabloid decided to use a gay issue as the underlying story for the success of the Final Four.

To paraphrase Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, the Times and Trib essentially did a Paulette Revere, "The lesbians are coming, the lesbians are coming," making what should have been strictly an economic story into front page filth.

When the business section slides over to the first thing you see when you open your daily, it is usually about interest rates, home sales or the like. Sports business rarely bleeds over unless it is on the level of the National Football League or a possible Olympic bid.

tbt* was the first to use the lesbian slant, using their front page as if this wanna-be tabloid was the New York Post. Not enough brain cells in the editor's office to make that analogy, sorry.

Their parent Times went a less dramatic fashion starting the story on the lower right below the fold but still keeping the body within the main section.

Then we have the Tribune. It not only ate up two-thirds of the front, above and below fold, to sensationalize and stoop to the level of the National Enquirer, they made you feel as if you should wash your hands after touching it.

I may be overstating it a bit since the Enquirer infrequently devotes 66% of their cover on one item unless there are actual facts to back it up.

There it was, in all its color glory, a picture right out of the 70's. Three women standing outside an establishment with the backdrop an entire street devoid of anyone else like it was taken at 4:00 am.

The photo alone screamed homophobia, the headline blared "Lesbian Super Bowl," and I wanted to vomit.

tbt* was just as guilty, the Times getting honorable mention.

I used to think we were beyond such things but reality tells me there is still homophobia, racism, anti-Semitism and other isms and phobias people hold within and for newspapers to perpetuate these stereotypes is beyond comprehension.

No one is going to argue there is a lesbian connection with such women's sports as basketball, golf and tennis only I fail to connect the dots when it comes to the coverage of Women's basketball as opposed to a LPGA, WTA or any other event - period.

Somehow the editors forgot the Final Four is representative of the four best teams college had to offer at that time, not to mention arguably the greatest coach in college, Pat Summit, was in town too.

By the way, four of the top five WNBA draft picks were at the St. Pete Times Forum: Candace Parker (#1 - Tennessee), Sylvia Fowles (#2 - Louisiana State), Candice Wiggins (#3 - Stanford) and Alexis Hornbuckle (#4 - Tennessee).

It is not whether a paper is conservative or liberal. The lesbian angle was a non-story much less front page news. Business yes, but used as a sidebar to the story, not the story itself.

One paper tried to use a specific area, Ybor City, as the gathering place while another insinuated this was regional. It was almost a call for families to lock up the women and kiddies to be protected against "them. 

Are we make issue with the Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg because there are too many foreigners or rumors that some drivers may be gay? Even if true, they did not go there.

Had this been about blacks, none of this would have seen the light of day because the writers and editors know better.

There is an invisible line of stereotypes that some papers cross for the sake of sales, titillation, possibly both. It also appeals to the lowest common denominator.

"Hey, did ya see the Times today? Lesbians!"

Will there ever be an end to crap like this? Not as long as the Enquirer and tabloids of its ilk exist. In our world it somehow comes with the territory.

Sadly, the so-called mainstream media has yet to figure out they are supposed to be above that genre. I guess it's "business" of sex.

Do I get a free red light with my subscription?