Nobody in our business gets anonymity in 2023. If you work in the sports media, people have access to you whenever they want it. You may not always be scrolling Twitter, but they can always fire off a take.
In 2023, that access is not new. Either you have been in the business long enough to see social media blow up and turn from a curiosity into a necessity, or you haven’t been around that long and you have never known a world where your audience did not have constant access to you.
That access and those interactions are not always positive ones. Nobody likes dealing with trolls. I get that. When their attacks turn personal, that can be more than just annoying. It can be scary.
But if those trolls are attacking an opinion you had that has since been proven wrong, you better be able to take it, or at least not take it personally.
Chris Simms is learning that lesson the hard way. Football fans, particularly devotees of the Miami Dolphins, are rightfully calling the NBC analyst a jerk for the way he reacted to the death of Eric Carmona.
Carmona was the founder of Tuannon, an internet movement devoted to hyping up Dolphin quarterback Tua Tagovailoa. Simms remains a doubter of Tua’s. That made him a frequent target of Carmona’s videos.
Following the death of Carmona, who was a 30-year-old Navy veteran, friends started a GoFundMe campaign to raise money for his widow and their four children. Mike Florio brought it up on an episode of Pro Football Talk Live on Peacock, because Tua Tagovailoa donated $10,000 to the campaign.
In Florio’s eyes, it was a beautiful moment of a pro athlete recognizing the devotion of a diehard fan. Simms suggested the donation was unearned.
“This is a deep subject and I think it’s societal and I won’t go into it because I’m only going to get myself in trouble,” Simms responded after Florio talked about the beauty of fans’ passion for their teams and players. “We’re also setting an example like, ‘Hey here’s money to a guy who was very negative too.’ That’s all I’m saying.”
Now, before I get too hard on Simms, I need to point out that he did donate to the GoFundMe. As of Saturday, the fundraising effort had topped $104,000 with $1000 coming from Simms. It was a nice gesture to follow up a major misstep, but I am not sure it changes the narrative at all.
Okay, with that out of the way…
I have never seen someone in our business look like such a petulant baby in all my life. Simms’s comment was so tone deaf and self-centered that if there wasn’t video of it, I would guess it was a Donald Trump tweet.
“Chris takes a lot of crap. I take a lot of crap,” Florio told Joe Rose during his weekly visit to the WQAM morning show last week. “I’ve been doing it a lot longer than Chris, and I think sometimes Chris just kind of reaches the end of the rope. He doesn’t actively participate in Twitter. He has one of the producers at NBC that primarily updates his account. So I don’t think he’s become as desensitized to it as I have over the years.”
The short fuse is no excuse. When a celebrity dies, the people that bring up the horrible things they did or were accused of are always shouted down by someone. “NOW IS NOT THE TIME!” Well, if that can be true of racism and crimes, surely it can be true of someone being rude to a sports talking head.
The greater sin for sports media professionals to be aware of is that whether Simms recognizes it or not, this is a gross case of punching down. Eric Carmona did not have near the platform that Simms does. On top of that, he is no longer with us to answer or defend himself.
There have been real examples of abuse and bullying on Twitter. Just ask any woman in this business what they have to deal with when they are wrong about a prediction or simply have the gall to give an opinion at all. I don’t want to dismiss stuff like that as “hey man, you gotta get used to it.”
But this is a fan telling someone who is paid to give an opinion that his opinion is stupid. That is kind of how opinion works. If it bothers Chris Simms that much, he needs to find a new field or, at the very least, have that NBC producer teach him about Twitter’s block and mute functions.
Abuse is inexcusable. If you can snuff it out or at least call it out, you should. Trolling is annoying. That is what filters are for. Criticism, though? Criticism is part of what comes with this job.
Chris Simms knows how to talk. He knows how to get a reaction from people. Those are valuable skills in broadcasting, but if disagreement causes him this much consternation, I am not sure he is in the right business.
Demetri Ravanos is a columnist and features writer for Barrett Media. He is also the creator of The Sports Podcast Festival, and a previous host on the Chewing Clock and Media Noise podcasts. He occasionally fills in on stations across the Carolinas in addition to hosting Panthers and College Football podcasts. His radio resume includes stops at WAVH and WZEW in Mobile, AL, WBPT in Birmingham, AL and WBBB, WPTK and WDNC in Raleigh, NC.
You can find him on Twitter @DemetriRavanos or reach him by email at DemetriTheGreek@gmail.com.
And you just HAD to get political with the sub-headline. First and last time I see your website.