ESPN apologizes for reporting on Michael Sam’s shower habits

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On Tuesday, ESPN’s Josina Anderson filed a report from Rams camp that included fairly extensive commentary on the shower habits of Michael Sam.  On Wednesday, ESPN apologized for the report.

“ESPN regrets the manner in which we presented our report,” the network said in a statement posted at its media-relations website, via SportsBusiness Daily.  “Clearly on Tuesday we collectively failed to meet the standards we have set in reporting on LGBT-related topics in sports.”

The Big Lead has the video of the report, which included a minute or so on whether Sam is avoiding showering with his teammates so that they aren’t uncomfortable.

It’s hard to listen to the explanation about whether Sam avoids showering with teammates without becoming uncomfortable, and ESPN ultimately decided that it was uncomfortable with the discomfort created by the report.

87 responses to “ESPN apologizes for reporting on Michael Sam’s shower habits

  1. The media. So advanced, so progressive. Lol. Michael Sam is still a human being. He’s gay. He doesn’t have the plague.

  2. This is how you know reporters are taking it too far with Michael Sam, their reporting his shower habits. Seriously who cares, he is a seventh round pick who happens to be gay, so what? Treat him like other football players, don’t give him this kind of publicity for nothing. How come I don’t here much about Clowney or Mack or Bortles and what they do outside football everyday. I’m not hating on gay people, but this is ridiculous, get back to football, ESPN.

  3. ESPN has made so many mistakes recently with their overall coverage it’s beyond ridiculous. Very amateurish and unprofessional broadcasting, and a lot of suspensions and apologies. ABC/Disney, who’s in charge..anyone?? I won’t watch their weekly programming anymore. If it weren’t for college football on weekends, I wouldn’t watch at all.

  4. When will ESPN go away? They are like books we dont need them anymore now that we have the internet. They should just stick to hosting Fantasy Football Leagues.

  5. Espn helped create this sideshow. Remember this is the same network who fired a reporter for saying a team had a chink in their armour. Because they thought it was offensive lol

  6. Sports fellas and ladies… ALL of you… Report on the games… Fans watch games… And root for our favorite teams… That’s it

  7. Watched the actual video report and it seemed benign. If the report is accurate, then it’s newsworthy simply because, contrary to the PC spin, Sam’s sexual orientation does indeed influence the psychology of locker room chemistry. It’s common sense folks. Think about it … if the NFL ever welcomes a female placekicker, will she shower with the guys?

  8. ESPN is obviously disappointed with the lack of controversy and “distractions” Sam has caused. I’m sure they were looking forward to exploiting the situation for ratings as much as possible. When nothing materialized and it turned out that current NFL players were not, in fact, born in 1935, they realized they were going to have to create their own controversies.

  9. I disagree. I think this story falls right in line with the standards they have set in reporting on LGBT-related topics in sports. Over the top and unnecessary.

  10. I think ESPN are the only ones who care about Michael Sam being gay. Maybe I am in the minority but I simply do not care if he is gay or not I truly don’t.
    I miss the old days of ESPN when they had tons of highlights (of all teams not just who they want), and didn’t want to create the stories. If it wasn’t for college game day (which I think is excellent) I would never watch them.

  11. Back in the 80’s there was a major gap in sports reporting. You had the 5 minutes after the weather and The George Michael Sports Machine.

    Then ESPN came along and did a masterful job of filling that hole.

    It seems as though that hole has reappeared. Once again leaving a gaping hole in effective sports reporting.

    Will someone please step up? Bueller? Bueller?

    Oh yea, and The Weather Channel… don’t get me started on that fiasco…

  12. “Was that wrong? Should I have not done that? I tell you I gotta plead ignorance on this thing because if anyone had said anything to me at all when I first started here that that sort of thing was frowned upon, you know, cause I’ve worked in a lot of offices and I tell you people do that all the time.”

    ESPN is now taking PR cues from George Costanza. Awesome.

  13. This is another good reason to never turn on ESPN. I honestly wish I could get it removed from my programming. Total waste of space.

  14. I am waiting on a video and report on what he ate for breakfast… or maybe a video of him brushing his teeth…

  15. It’s in ESPN’s best interest to keep stories like this, Tebow, and Manziel at the tip of relevance until something better comes along to push ratings.

    Tim Tebow wasn’t a real story until Skip Bayless came along.

    The moment people figured out that “news” could be a profit center, “news” became worthless.

  16. Why would anyone report on that in the first place. It’s sensationalism to try and create some kind of controversy. If owners, GMs, coaches and players can all just move on and treat Sam like any other player then why can’t ESPN?

  17. The only people who give a rats azz about Michael Sam’s sexuality are the progressives/liberals. It is the same story over and over. Make a big deal about how he is the first, blah blah blah and act like America isnt an accepting country. Then beat down anyone who dares speak out against the issue. Then when everyone has accepted it, is over it, and doesnt think it is a big deal, they need to drum something up to make it a big deal again. Sort of the, “See, I told you that America isnt accepting” story.

    We see it everyday, whether it is a gay athlete, or the presidents skin color, we hear about it over and over and over and over and over and over because the goal isnt acceptance, the goal is to make it a huge deal. And when everything dies down they dont know what to do and need to make something up to make it a big deal again. The President, whether you agree with him or not, isnt white, and was elected twice. That pretty much tells me America (atleast “most”) is over racism. But yet, every story about Obama is that white conservatives disagree with his liberal agenda, not because they have a different political view, but rather, because they are racist…. America has accepted a president of a different skin color, so the liberal media needs to drum up racism because that sells.

    America is the most accepting, most tolerant country on earth. But if you listen to Sharpton, Obama, Jackson, MSNBC, etc, it is hard to believe because 22 hours a day they are telling us we arent accepting, we arent tolerant, etc. If you think America isnt tolerant or accepting, I suggest you go to some of the other countries in this world and tell them you are gay, and you will see what intolerant really is

  18. ESPN won’t begin to regain any credibility until they fire the ultimate blowhard, Chris Berman. His shtick was stale 15 years ago.

  19. They just need to hire Arian Foster as their pr guy after that one. “We’re just out here, working hard, trying to be the best network we can be.”

  20. This is another reason why I cannot stomach ESPN. The only thing worth watching is Baseball Tonight.

    Their so called ‘reporting’ are now resembling Saturday Night Live skits of ESPN reporting.

    Thankfully we now have Fox sports and NFL network

    What a load of crap – they regret this . Right now the media relations dept. probably sounds like Flounder from ‘Animal House’ “Oh boy, this is great!”

  21. just to be clear….ESPN has been over the top for years. They need to report sports scores, highlights, etc. They need to leave political theories and opinions out of it. However, there are other networks who are there for sports that do the same thing.

    I used to watch Sportscenter on a daily basis. Now, i only watch ESPN when my team is playing or if im bored and a game is on.

    Im tired of the world apologizing when someone gets offended.

    I am a married man to a beautiful lady. If i had to shower with women at my workplace i would be uncomfortable even though i am attracted to women. If i had to shower with men at my workplace i would NOT be uncomfortable with that scenario. But, I can understand that others may not be so comfortable showering with people of the same sex who prefer that sex.

    Either way, i detest ESPN for covering such a story. It should be up to the Employer and Employee to determine how to effectively handle this type of a situation. The more and more involvement government has….the more and more they will interfere in routine life.

  22. Remember when the word ‘integrity’ meant something in the media? I barely do. I bet when McDonald’s opened up their first restaurant, the hamburgers were pretty good. Now they serve junk. But nobody cares, because there’s nowhere else to get a $1.19 hamburger. I bet when ESPN first came on the air, their reporting was pretty good. Now they air junk. But nobody cares because there’s nowhere else to get a National Sports Channel on your basic cable/satellite package.

  23. People don’t realize that $5 of their cable bill goes to ESPN on a monthly basis… Outside of college football, MNF, and the US Open, (golf) I have no use for the jockless dweebs who report sports on a daily basis… Their NFL team is even worse with Killer Ray and Trent Dilfer. (nails on a chalk board…)

  24. The guy is gay, just like lots of other NFL players in the game today who don’t have the stones to come out of the closet..
    Sam is just honest.
    Give the man the respect he deserves.
    ESPN is a joke.

  25. The worldwide joke of sportscasting. There are many reasons why I haven’t watched or had bspn on my TV for almost 8 years now.

    The sole exception has been when they had a Thursday night NFL game I was interested in.

  26. ESPN is desperate. Everyone there is a tool and believe they know what the public wants to hear. I’ve never been asked what I want to hear.

  27. ESPN is a joke. Does Josina Anderson get suspended/terminated? I mean shouldn’t a light bulb have gone off on her head; “Should I really be reporting this?” Was she thinking at all?

  28. Now that his shower habits are a news story, does ESPN post a reporter in the Rams’ showers to report on the goings-on? What about the rest of the NFL? Could there be shower stories on other teams? Let’s post reporters in all the showers and see if we can come up with something. After all, this is now a legitimate story!

  29. “Clearly on Tuesday we collectively failed to meet the standards we have set in reporting on sports.”

    Fixed it for them.

  30. Wonder what the coverage and media attention will be like when the first female gets drafted? Will her shower habits be documented and reported upon? Probably.

    I’m not surprised ESPN gave a report regarding Michael Sam’s shower routine, and I’ve been wondering if some players on the team would feel uncomfortable being in the shower with him.

    It’s good to see guys take the high road, I guess.

  31. All these “after the fact” apologies are total BS. IMO they all know what they are doing/saying to get the WOW factor. Journalism(?) at its worst.

  32. Too little too late….the coverage on Sam is embarrassing to begin with but to take it to that level someone needs to lose their job

  33. This is not all on Josina. Either she found out the information and ran it by producers or they told her specifically to ask about how he was being received in the locker room. You can argue that information shouldn’t have been reported, and I would agree, but it is out of the ordinary that a player wouldn’t be showering with the rest.

  34. And they buried their apology for coaching up “experts” lying about Walk through tapes and creating “Spygate” by burying it in the Ombudsman page. Classic.

  35. I can’t believe an NFL locker room does not have private showers. The locker room at my gym has private showers so I can shower without putting on a show for all the closeted married guys who like to linger and lurk. Why wouldn’t an NFL locker room provide this same privacy to those who want it?

  36. I hope he gets cut just so I can turn on ESPN and NFL Network and not hear about these kinds of things. I mean jesus they act like there was never a gay player before. I’m sure there has been more than a couple.

  37. I’m not on board with all this “gay rights” business, but I can’t understand anybody being uncomfortable with showering in a locker room with a gay male present.

    That’s a “you” problem, not a gay problem.

  38. ESPN hasn’t been a credible source of objective sports reporting for years now. The slide into irrelevancy continutes, and judging by the other comments, seems to be gaining momentum.

  39. Tawdry and salacious storytelling is all that ESPN is about these days. Each day the network stoops to newer lows and becomes more irrelevant. They need to cut their staff in half then focus on the things in sports that really matter.

  40. Why I stopped watching ESPN, they feel they can apologize for anything and all is forgiven. They are a station full of non accountable journalists.

  41. I’m surprised ESPN hasn’t mentioned “dropping the soap.”

    I stopped watching espn 2 years ago. Looks like I made the right choice.

  42. This is yet another reason why the season can’t start soon enough. The media has so little to talk about that they fill airtime with this kind of garbage.

    The reporter should get a stiff kick in the butt, but her bosses should get kicked even harder for authorizing this.

  43. hope he gets cut just so I can turn on ESPN and NFL Network and not hear about these kinds of thing

    Guess where he’s gonna be working if he gets cut.

  44. The sad fact regarding this reporter is that without the double minority privileges she exploits she would not have a job.

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