Bally Sports Tries To Disappear Sports Commentator’s Televised Rant, Streisanding It To The Moon
Some will never learn. The Streisand Effect, coined by site-god Mike Masnick two decades ago, is a term that describes when a person or group attempts to disappear content, typically from the internet, which only serves to make that content far more visible and sought out. Because the internet tends to round around censorship and deletion. Because the internet is forever, someway, somehow. Because attempts to control the content cat that has already exited the content bag never, ever works.
That major media operations still don't get this is hilarious. For instance, Bally Sports first tweeted, and then deleted, a rant by one of its commentators who went on a fairly childish screed against the L.A. Clippers' James Harden. The rant itself is long and combative. Here's a small sample to give you a sense of what we're talking about.
They traded Ben Simmons for you; how did they pull that off? And you know what, you went there and you got a partner who got the MVP-he won MVP! And what did you say afterwards? They didn't hand me the reins.' You're the point guard. You were holding the reins. And what did you do when you had the reins? You scored nine points in Game 7 against Boston; you blew a 3-2 series lead.
So they fired their coach, not good enough. You broke up with the guy who believed in you again. You said, The bright lights of L.A., that's where I want to go, let's see if that works.'
Listen, James, have you ever had those friends who had bad roommates? Over and over again they complained about their bad roommates. This guy's terrible.' They never thought to be self-aware enough that they're the bad roommate; they're the problem. Hey, James, YOU'RE the problem.
There was both more before and after that pull quote. Like I said, it's a 2 minute rant. And, as I also said, Bally Sports first tweeted video of the rant out themselves... and then pulled it after the clip got a bunch of attention, particularly from those who dislike Harden. I imagine it was pulled because Bally Sports realized it was low-brow, or perhaps the league or someone from Harden's team complained.
Whatever the case, disappearing the video sure didn't do the freaking trick. Here we are talking about it, after all, in a true Streisand Effect outcome. The full video is still out there on ExTwitter and elsewhere for you to find and watch as much as you like. And it's now getting national attention from the likes of Sports Illustrated. Finally, of course, it even makes its way to our own corner of the internet, where we typically talk about tech policy and media.
And, to make matters worse, now these outlets are openly theorizing about why it was taken down, drawing even more intrigue into the matter.
This just makes things even more bizarre. You could understand why Harden or someone in Harden's camp would be upset with the clip. But why on Earth would anyone from Bally Sports Southwest have an issue with an NBA analyst giving dead-on, solid analysis?
This just leads to more questions. Were the Mavericks upset with Dameris taking Harden to task? Did Bally Sports Southwest think the NBA would be upset with a player getting called out in such direct fashion? Did Bally Sports Southwest think it would bad business to have their analyst go after Harden, since Clippers games air on Bally Sports SoCal?
An operation like Bally Sports really shouldn't have to be learning this lesson in 2023. The Streisand Effect is a dominant mistress and she will beat you at your attempts to hide content every single time.