1. Full disclosure: I had never heard of Brandon Robinson until Monday night when I saw a jaw-dropping video on Twitter. Robinson is the lead NBA analyst for Bally Sports, which we don’t have here in New York. And so I was unfamiliar with Robinson and his work.
Robinson may be the nicest guy in the world and may normally do excellent work. However, he needs to seriously rethink his approach to the recent Kyrie Irving controversy.
Over the weekend, the Nets star tweeted a link to a film that was filled with antisemitic tropes. He then defended his promotion of the film in a heated exchange with ESPN’s Nick Friedell in which Irving came off terribly. Shortly afterward, he deleted the tweet in question.
Appearing on WPIX in New York on Sunday night, Robinson defended Irving in a mind-boggling manner. Robinson didn’t take the free speech approach or opine that maybe Irving just made a regretful decision. Instead, he called out the coverage of the Irving saga. And his logic on that was even more mind-boggling.
“I think this backlash is really in poor taste because he is in a contract year,” said Robinson. “I’ll even take it a step further. When you look at this instance here, if the Nets were 5–0, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. I think that when you look at a team that is 1–4, and we’re focusing on the issue that is an Amazon Prime link that has over 1,200 reviews and four and a half stars, we’re getting away from the game.”
Robinson later added, “We should be talking about the Nets and their dynamic more than we should be talking about a movie.”
I honestly can’t believe that Robinson really thinks the coverage of Irving sharing an antisemitic film would be different if the Nets had a better record. He can’t possibly think that. You can make the argument that the coverage is more intense because Irving is one of the best players in the league, but you can’t make the argument that his team’s record is a factor here.
As for the take that the backlash is in poor taste because Irving is in a contract year, I don’t even know where to begin with that one. I would be willing to bet big money that there wasn’t one single reporter who was thinking about Irving’s contract situation when they called him out for promoting the disturbing film.
If you watch the clip, it’s clear Robinson likes Irving and wants to defend the Nets star. However, his approach was an absolute trainwreck.
2. Quarterback Jacoby Brissett tried to draw the Bengals offsides late in the Browns’ win Monday night and even taunted them while doing so, much to the delight of analyst Troy Aikman.
3. After Joe Buck and Troy Aikman left Fox for ESPN, I told both of them they should bring back the yellow blazer for Monday Night Football. They did so last night for Halloween, but we need these on a weekly basis.
4. This was a particularly brutal, yet amusing, week for college football “Bad Beats.”
5. Some ratings nuggets:
CBS drew 16.1 million viewers for its early window, highlighted by Steelers at Eagles, on Sunday. That’s the network’s best number for that time slot this season.
Fox landed 24.9 million viewers for the late window Sunday that featured Niners at Rams.
Game 1 of the World Series drew 11,682,000 on Friday, while Game 2 on Saturday drew 10,993,000 million.
Thursday Night Football finally saw a ratings increase last week for Ravens-Bucs, drawing 10.01 million
6. This week’s SI Media Podcast features a conversation with Sports Business Journal‘s John Ourand about the latest sports media news. Topics covered include:
• Amazon’s declining Thursday Night Football ratings
• Jim Nantz out, Ian Eagle in for the NCAA tournament
• World Series ratings issues
• ManningCast perspective
• NFL Sunday Ticket update
The show closes with my weekly “Traina Thoughts” segment with Sal Licata, where we discuss a terrible gambling loss, the World Series and Taylor Swift.
You can listen to the podcast below or download it on Apple, Spotify and Google.
You can also watch the SI Media Podcast on YouTube.
