The world of sports media and journalism can be a wonderful and horrific place. It can be a beautiful place where fans of a team or of a sport can discuss and debate in what you hope to be a friendly manner. However, this world of social media mixed with the sports can be harsh for the athletes as it now truly pays to be toxic in sports.
The Kevin Durant Injury
In 2019, Kevin Durant came swiftly back from injury in order to help his team to compete in the NBA Finals that year. When Kevin Durant tore his Achilles in game five of the series in the Toronto’s, the opposing team, stadium. As we all know, injuries are horrible for anybody. You would think that everyone would feel sympathy for the man, but this was not the case. The stadium quickly filled with cheers, and Twitter that night was filled with fans, and even famous sport personalities, excited that the Raptors had a better chance to win the championship.
“Bob McCown, host of ‘Prime Time Sports,’… ‘Quite frankly, it was embarrassing,’ McCown told listeners. ‘I’m embarrassed by it. I’m afraid that this is a legacy that will linger.” This excitement represents a low moment in the sports world where plenty of fans and others showed their true colors. It truly was awful seeing accounts on Twitter get so many likes and retweets on a tweet trashing Kevin Durant. This torment could not have been healthy for the players, as it must have been mentally draining to see a stadium cheer when an elite athlete just injured himself after training so hard to come back from a prior injury.
Skip Bayless
Skip Bayless can be understood as the root of the problem for this toxicity in the sports media. Is it entertaining television? Sure. However, if you constantly attack athletes, it can be mentally draining for them. It is easy to forget that these athletes are humans. Blogger Raymond M. writes “I do know Skip trolls, but he’s been doing it before it was a thing, even though he was in the wrong at times for doing what a lot of current personalities do now.” This antagonism is the new normal now because viewers want to see the crazy reactions that these personalities have, and what crazy sporting takes they have for the day. Fans live off the shock value of personalities’ over-the-top takes.
Skip Bayless loves to torment LeBron. Everything he does and talks about is LeBron, trying to bring the man down every chance he gets. Of course, you can say that as an athlete you sign up for critical fans and media, but now the world of sports media seems to be even more toxic. TV personalities try to get higher ratings for their shows or more clicks on YouTube for their horrible takes. This mentality is meant to bring others down and has now encouraged a new generation to hate and torment athletes. This hatred can be harmful for the athlete’s own mental health as well as those friends and family who are around them.
Conclusion
In conclusion, we see that these TV personalities encourage these hurtful messages and the toxic ways that fans act. Only recently have we seen sports players talk about mental illness and their experiences of going through hardships. One day there will hopefully be a more supportive and caring sports media world, but that world may be a distant thought.
