ESPN Wants So Badly For ‘First Take’ to Matter

By Chris Mottram
We’ve already had our fun at ESPN’s expense once today, but dammit, sometimes they just make it too easy.
While checking out ESPN.com (mostly because I enjoy pain), I noticed a headline and thought that I had inadvertently developed time travel and gone back to three weeks ago. “Gay turns to YouTube for All-Star dunk inspiration.” I read it three times, closed my eyes and opened ‘em again, and yep, it was still there:
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So why would ESPN feature a story that was all over the sports interwebs (yes, including here) the week of Janurary 21st as “news”? I found my answer when I read the story.
Rudy Gay was on ESPN First Take (you know, that sports morning show for people who watch morning shows from 10AM-Noon), where he discussed the YouTube dunk contest thing. ESPN then saw this as their opportunity to pass the story off as if it was some sort of exclusive, breaking news as seen only on First Take:
“The Memphis Grizzlies swingman has posted his request on the video sharing site You Tube, asking dunkers around the world to submit their best throw-down. Gay plans to emulate the best of those dunks at the contest.
’They have to perform dunks I can do,’ Gay said Tuesday on ESPN First Take.”
To further illustrate how un-newsworthy this story is, check out the original video on YouTube. It was posted three weeks ago today and has been viewed 1,708,603 times. But look on the bight side, ESPN, you were still ahead of the 294 million people living in this country who haven’t watched that video yet.
> Gay Posts Request for Dunk Inspiration on YouTube | ESPN.com↵