2 comments Jay Mariotti is Back, the World Weeps

Jay Mariotti is back. For real this time. He's threatened to come back several times, but has not quite made it all the way back. First, he wrote for Chicago Side Sports, then he stated he would be writing for ESPN (and wrote one column, then disappeared), and now he is back with a site called The Mariotti Show that can be found at www.mariottishow.com. Not that he is self-involved of course. He's going to be doing a radio show everyday, so presumably there will be people listening to this radio show and he isn't doing it in his backyard with stuffed animals as the listeners and as those who call-in with questions. Because no one knows the real Jay Mariotti (despite the hundreds of columns he has written and having worked for ESPN for almost a decade) he wants to re-introduce himself to us. See, Jay is all "indie sportswriting" now. Corporations suck and big companies just suck the life out of you. This is rich coming from a guy who made a ton of money working for big sports media corporations and this money he made is how he can afford to "go indie" with his sportswriting. Regardless, after making a career on television at ESPN, writing at the "Chicago Sun-Times," and recently pitching his columns to sites like Fox Sports, Jay completely fails to see the contradiction in touting his new indie direction. Basically, he got rejected by the big boys, so now he feels he is too cool and "indie" for them. Jay wants to be The Man, not work for The Man. No really, Jay says something like this in this not-so-brief introduction.

I’m excited to launch a multimedia production that I believe will be the next digital prototype for sports commentators and columnists.

Had Jay Mariotti written this in 2010 prior to Grantland, Peter Gammons' new site, or The MMQB then Mariotti Show would be the next digital prototype for sports commentators and columnists. Unfortunately, these other sites did it first, but Jay Mariotti has never allowed reality to delude his self-perceived accomplishments.

At a time when corporate interests have swallowed much of sports journalism and left too much cooperative residue between leagues and mammoth media companies, 

Jay Mariotti is unbearable. This type of writing goes on for a while in this re-introduction to Jay Mariotti. Through his sportswriting career Jay has worked for The Sporting News, AOL, ESPN, and various large newspapers like  the "Chicago Sun-Times," "Denver Post," and "The Detroit News." He's made his money and now that he feels he is done working for big media companies and corporate interests he is very much against the mammoth opinion-stifling organizations. Once Jay makes his money by writing columns that feature his opinion, those people who paid him so very well to do so are just incredibly evil by stifling Jay's voice, and he never thinks that few readers want to read what he writes anymore. It's not him, it's them.

In partnership with Genesis Communications, my plan has come to life. I’ve signed a multi-year deal to provide news and commentary about anyone and anything in sports, media, culture, the world. Since leaving ESPN

Jay "left" ESPN much in the same way a drunk leaves a strip club after attempting to touch one of the dancers. Don't forget this. Reality and Jay have never met.

I’ve had a terrific time enjoying life and catching my breath in Los Angeles, a much-needed getaway after a blurry 20-year period that included a daily ESPN TV show, big-city column writing, talk radio and extensive world travel.

While getting well-paid by these corporate interests that have swallowed sports journalism and left too much cooperative residue between leagues and mammoth media companies. I sort of agree with this statement, but Jay is acting like this is a new development. The only difference is that Jay used to be a part of these conglomerates and now they don't want any part of him. Hence, he now sees them as evil and part of the problem with sports journalism. He fails to see the only factor removed from the equation is him. They won't hire him, so now his perspective has changed.

In my days away, sports has taken complex and unprecedented turns, and the need for robust, serious commentary and investigative reporting is stronger than ever.

I absolutely agree. I think many other news organizations agree as well. That's why you have to partner with Genesis Communications. They want attention, while the very idea Jay is the one to provide investigative journalism and serious commentary is hilarious. It's like Justin Bieber deciding the music industry needs real musicians who aren't marketed on their looks and ability to sell records and as a real musician he is the guy to save the music industry.

Sports is a multi-billion-dollar-business — should we be saying multi-trillion now? — and it should be covered as such by commentators who are editorially and financially detached from the mechanism.

Jay isn't talking about blogs of course. That's silly to think. Jay is talking about him...and only him. Sports should be covered by commentators who made their money working at organizations who are financially and editorially attached to the mechanism and then once they are no longer wanted rail against this mechanism.

The sports fan, remember, also is a consumer who invests his passions, his mind, his time … and his wallet.

I’ve never forgotten that.

The idea of Jay Mariotti as sportswriting's savior is laughable. Jay has never forgotten that riling up the sports fan with stupid hypothesis, ignorant columns and yelling into the camera as much as possible is how he can get into the consumer's wallet.

For anyone questioning this vision and my commitment to digital evolution, rewind to 2008, when the Chicago Sun-Times (a newspaper in the Midwest) broke a promise to improve its archaic Web site during our coverage of the Beijing Olympics. I politely resigned after the Games, left $1 million of guaranteed money behind,

This is a great example of Jay Mariotti making a lot of money working for the mechanism and then railing against the mechanism once he's gotten his cash.

I know and respect many solid pros who work for those editorial operations, and they’re resigned to a chilling reality that functional journalism, at some point, cedes to those financial relationships.

Yet for 20 years somehow Jay Mariotti willingly worked for organizations that ceded functional journalism to financial relationships and he didn't seem too pissed off about it. Heck, while he was supposedly being stifled at the "Sun-Times" he searched out other behemoths like ESPN where his voice could further be ceded to financial relationships.

I should note I’ve had meetings with ESPN and Fox about joining their operations, and candidly,

They had no interest in hiring you?

I think they’re too corporate, while they have their own opinions of me.

"Too corporate" being defined as "they didn't want to hire me" due to the opinion they had of Jay.

Point being, I can’t be The Man if I’m working for The Man and The Man has a close business arrangement with the subjects of my commentaries.

Jay has to tell it like it is without those chains that working for an influential sports organization would require.

I was stunned to hear ESPN’s Michael Wilbon angrily criticize Roger Goodell, the NFL commissioner, as “gutless” after the league didn’t punish Philadelphia receiver Riley Cooper for his racist remark.

That is a rarity, people.

Isn't funny how Jay Mariotti can't simply state he has decided to launch a multi-platform site, but he has to shit on everyone else while announcing he has decided to launch a multi-platform site? I think that's the point of Roger Ebert's screed against Mariotti after Jay left the "Sun-Times," which is a point that Mariotti obviously missed. It doesn't surprise me that Jay is too vacant to understand the point Ebert was making. Ebert wasn't trying to wonder why Mariotti chose to leave the "Sun-Times," but he wondered why he had to shit on everyone as he left. The same principle applies here. Mariotti simply can't introduce his new venture, he has to treat everyone poorly and piss in everyone's Corn Flakes while introducing his new venture.

Mariotti is the type of guy who would announce he is engaged by stating, "I've finally found a woman who isn't a gutless whore that only wants to be around me for my money."

Having been painted by previous bosses into conflict-of-interest-driven editorial corners, I’ve opted at this point to be the independent who controls content within a franchise. The goal is to expand with more writers and voices while growing the radio program for Genesis nationally and across Florida. I’m not doing this to get wealthy; 

Oh, of course not. Jay doesn't want to work for a financially-driven organization that only cares about it's business arrangements, he wants TO BE the financially-driven organization so he can paint his writers into an editorial corner based on his business arrangements.

You’re seeing “franchise” sites pop up, such as Bill Simmons and “Grantland” at ESPN and Peter King’s “MMQB” at Sports Illustrated. Those are cool sites oozing of quality, but this will be more cutting-edge.

Peter King may have embraced technology through video, but Jay Mariotti is going to embrace technology with video AND cursing. It's going to be real cutting-edge work. I also take the implication of the sentence that says "Those are cool sites oozing of quality, but this will be more cutting-edge" to mean that Jay's site won't have quality, but it's going to be cutting-edge shitty sportswriting. Will there be a column written from the moon? Maybe. Is Jay going to use FaceTime to do a video? He can't say for sure because he doesn't want to give anything away. Jay's radio show? It will be broadcast everyday right on site in Jay's bathroom. It's cutting-edge and the acoustics are fantastic. 

I’m not in this business to publicize sports or masturbate to my own prose.

Jay has people who masturbate to his prose for him. That's part of being independent, you can hire others to sexually please themselves to your words. Shakespeare did it all the time.

I’m in it to cover sports. Big, big difference.

And Jay should be honest with himself. His sportswriting career has consisted a lot of him masturbating to his own prose. You can search his archives at AOL and the "Sun-Times" to see this is true.

Please understand — and I can’t say it enough — that sports is a thriving industry followed by the multitudes. 

Apparently Jay believes himself to be one of the first people to notice and comment that sports is a thriving industry followed by rabid fans. See, reality and Jay don't really seem to mix. He seems to believe this multi-platform site he has setting up is one of a kind when he's simply following the trend set out by Peter Gammons, Bill Simmons and Peter King.

Plus, I’m kind of bored in paradise. I’ve seen my sunsets in Santa Monica, eaten at every restaurant from Silver Lake to Malibu, spent nights on Abbot Kinney and Ocean Avenue, done the scenes and parties and museums, cruised my bike from Pacific Palisades to Palos Verdes, been to the Dodgers/Angels/Lakers/Clippers/Kings/USC/UCLA/Beckham.

We all know Jay isn't humble, so I can't call this a humblebrag. This is just straight-out bragging. Plus, don't forget Jay was able to live this life because of his time spent in the evil mechanism that censored him and forced him to toe the party line to appease the corporate interests. It's nearly impossible for me to reconcile Jay bragging about his life in paradise that was funded by the very interests he is strongly railing against in this re-introduction.

I’ve chatted with Owen Wilson,

No way. I talked with the drummer from Tonic one time. We are both just a couple steps away from being huge stars.

talked sports with Pittsburgh homeboy Michael Keaton,

If this were 1992 I would be impressed with Jay's use of the word "homeboy" and the fact he talked to Michael Keaton.

I’ve been to a holiday party in Orange County where President Obama’s face was a dartboard target.

I want to go to a party where Jay Mariotti is a dartboard target.

I’ve been to Laguna Beach, Newport Beach, Napa, Yountville, Santa Barbara, San Diego, La Jolla, Palm Springs, San Francisco, Carmel, Sausalito, Big Sur, Pebble Beach and the original In-N-Out Burger in Baldwin Park.

So has anyone who decides to take a two week vacation to California. Get in line.

Time to work. With a portable studio — how I love 2013 — we’ll be doing the radio show from L.A., Florida, the Super Bowl, a Mexican bullfighting ring, anywhere and everywhere.

But mostly in Jay's bathroom. That's the main location.

I can’t wait to renew my fascination with the bigger planet.

The Earth is so big and Jay can't wait to explore it by putting down a portable studio and then doing a three hour radio show. He couldn't do this before when he worked for these large news organizations. It's not like he could write a column from the Super Bowl, from China, or even do a podcast from any location on Earth he wanted to...well, he could have, but the mechanism stifled him. None of that was possible in Jay's mind back in 2013, but now the future is radio from anywhere in the world. Five years ago it wasn't possible to do radio from anywhere in the world, but Jay has not only invented technology that allows to happen, he will be the first person to do a sports radio show outside of the United States. You know what, Jay may also become the first person to explore outer space. He's breaking all sorts of barriers these days.

While the Internet paves new avenues of media creativity, it also enables the irresponsibility of hacks. I know this too well, having come off a legal case filled with countless lies and accompanied by lazy, reckless, inaccurate, incomplete news coverage. As the father of two wonderful, successful daughters, I abhor domestic abuse and never have or would strike a woman.

As I said just a few paragraphs ago, Jay can't simply re-introduce himself. He has to shit on everyone else in the process. Jay is getting ready to say he took the high road during his legal issues, yet here he is bashing the woman who accused him of hitting her. Does that sound like the high road to you? It's easier to take the high road during a court case since anything you say can be part of the record, but the real test of a person taking the high road is if he doesn't act like a complete asshole after the court case has ended. Reality is a foreign concept to Jay. He says he took the high road during the court case as if this is some grand favor he did and not a legal move to ensure he didn't do anything to hurt his case, yet here Jay goes bashing whoever he can once there are no repercussions.

A Kafkaesque drama was fueled by a person’s failed pursuit of money — as I’ve explained before in several interviews and chronicled in meticulous detail in my e-book, “The System.” 

An e-book? But Jay why didn't you write a book through a publisher that was released in hardback and then a year later in paperback? Let me guess, you didn't want to deal with publishers who only look to censor what you write due to their financial conflicts with other media entities? This is otherwise known as, "no publisher wanted to publish Jay's book."

Of course if you do a search for "The System" you notice that the Amazon page can't find it but it can be found in Italian on your Kindle.

I’m confident we would have won at trial. But realizing the L.A. justice system is bureaucratic at best and insidious at worst, I had no interest in spending a half-million dollars on legal fees, exposing my daughters and family to what clearly was one-sided media coverage

Jay pled no contest, but of course he isn't REALLY guilty. Jay simply didn't want to expose his family to the evil media (the same media that Jay, yet again, made his money off being a part of) and their one-sided coverage. How many hit-job pieces has Jay written through the years as a writer for AOL and the "Sun-Times"? Check my archives and you will find hit-job pieces on Michael Phelps among other athletes, but it's not so fun when Jay is the one getting hit is it? You would think this would make Jay more self-aware, but he's incapable of emotional growth or any other type of conscious wakening to reality, so he just blames someone else for his problems.

Jay has spent the first half of this introduction telling us how filthy rich he is and how he has millions, but of course why would he spend these millions to prevent himself from getting a reputation as a man who strikes women? It's just his reputation at stake. Why spend money if he is truly innocent to fight these allegations using the money he has saved to salvage his reputation? I personally would spend as much money as I could preventing myself from being painted as someone hits women. So this leaves me to two conclusions.

1. Jay doesn't care about his reputation or what anyone else thinks. This despite the fact Jay has multiple times tried to clear the air about how he is innocent of the charges, so I can't believe Jay doesn't care about his reputation.

2. Jay is lying and spinning the story how it makes him look best. He is hiding behind wanting to do what is best for his family by pleading no contest to stalking and assault. I'm not sure how pleading no contest to stalking and assault is protecting his family, but he must really fear the one-sided media coverage. What could have come out that Jay did which this one-sided media coverage would have unearthed? That's what I want to know. If Jay was innocent of the charges he pled no contest to and would never assault a women, then that's the worst the media could find, right? So if there is nothing else to be uncovered, why fear the one-sided media coverage? If there's nothing else for the media to smear and the allegations are untrue, then why not salvage your reputation and fight the charges if you have the money to do so?

I obviously have no idea what happened with Jay and his girlfriend, but his insistence he was protecting his family from the one-sided media rings false for me. The allegations were already public and if there isn't anything else to be revealed and only the truth could come out, why plead no contest?

and wondering if a Google-reading jury might profile me.

Jay is so popular that people might judge him for the asshole he plays on television, in print and in real life.

I took the high road, didn’t scream publicly about dirty tactics in the case, accepted the no-contest route and wrote the book in September 2011 not to make money but so all of this could be on public record.

And any testimony at the trial would also have been a part of the public record.

When a judge in a preliminary hearing refused to allow testimony from our witnesses and experts, wouldn’t address suspicious dealings involving the LAPD

It's an LAPD conspiracy against Jay Mariotti! Jay clearly believes the world revolves around him to the point an entire police department would contrive a way for him to be locked up.

He suggested “expungement,” said a few nice words and sent me on my way. That quickly, the system was done with me. Not surprisingly, the person filed a civil suit, and her legal team tried to have it publicized on TMZ, which wasn’t interested. Her suit immediately was dropped after we posed hard questions about her personal life and motives and made it known we were prepared to re-submit the boatload of discoveries, witnesses and experts — the elements we originally weren’t allowed to present. 

Of course, Jay wasn't willing to spend money to fight the case in criminal court because it was too expensive and he didn't seem willing to put his family through that, but he seemed willing to spend his money to fight the case in civil court. This despite the fact a civil lawsuit would bring as much negative attention and further expose his daughters to the one-sided media coverage. Interesting. 

Wrote Rieder: “Life is packed with nuances and subtleties and shades of gray. But the news media are often uncomfortable in such murky terrain. They prefer straightforward narratives, with good guys and bad guys, heroes and villains. Those tales are much easier for readers and viewers to relate to.”

By the way, this is how Jay Mariotti has made his career writing. He doesn't use shades of gray or nuance, but comes out and provides a straightforward narrative of good guys and bad guys. Jay loved to pass judgment. He did this constantly when talking about:

Mike Leach

Tiger Woods

LeGarrette Blount

A-Rod

Michael Phelps

Then there is the story he wrote about the Big East Tournament and how conference tournaments are boring and only serve to make money for the conference...only to completely change the tone of his article once the Big East Tournament had a six overtime game. He not only changed the tone of the article but re-wrote the entire thing because reality had proved his perception incorrect and Jay's ego won't allow him to look wrong. I'm still not over that. Jay changed his entire column around, including changing his opinion of conference tournaments, because he looked like a dumbass for calling conference tournaments boring and pointless after the Big East tournament had a six overtime game. Jay has always been the worst.

When I last called, my case hadn’t been updated or corrected in the computer base, and a clerk insisted I owed $6,100 to the city for some reason, which wasn’t true. How about the day last year when I received a recorded message from a court, demanding my presence that morning or I’d be arrested? Turns out it was a clerical error, but if the L.A. Times had seen that before it was corrected on the court docket, I might have been subjected to a new round of bogus news stories.

Not that Jay is bitter of course. This is supposed to be a re-introduction to Jay and an introduction to his new site, but it's mostly Jay taking out his anger on people. Actually, him taking cheap shots at people and being bitter is probably a great re-introduction to Jay Mariotti.

I guess it’s healthy for a journalist to be a news subject, though it’s happened beyond my control too often, such as when twice-since-fired baseball manager Ozzie Guillen called me “a fag” and lit a national controversy on homophobic comments in sports.

In Ozzie's defense, a piece of wood probably has a higher intelligence than Jay Mariotti.

Going forward, I suppose I could leave behind the daily sports grind, write more books and dabble in other subject material. But why?

But why wouldn't anyone publish the books you, Jay Mariotti, would write? The answer is in the question.

You can say I’m uniquely qualified now to comment on athletes in legal messes. I’ve been among those who’ve offered quick-trigger opinions about athletes in trouble, and after seeing how the system works, I’ll know in the future to investigate all angles.

Perspective, it’s called.

I'll believe it when I read it. Jay's first few columns are calling the NFL a "Death Sport," commenting on what a waste A-Rod is, and calls Bud Selig "Rambo." I guess we'll see how into investigating all angles Jay has become.

I’ve had a productive, rewarding career. Not long ago, I was going on Season Nine as a daily regular on ESPN’s “Around The Horn,” covering everything and traveling everywhere as AOL’s lead sports columnist, and coming off a successful summer of radio shows with Jalen Rose on ESPN’s L.A. affiliate. Lately, I’ve written for ESPN.com — a Kobe Bryant profile — 

Notice that Jay isn't shy about bragging about all the work he did with the mechanism that chews up honest sports journalism and spits out what the corporate interests want written. He wants it both ways. He wants the reader to be impressed by his work, but also believe him when he talks about how he wouldn't work for the same large organizations he has worked with in the past because they only write what the corporate interests want them to write. It sounds to me like Jay doesn't get to play with the big boys anymore, so he is trying to knock them down.

Jay is basically saying, "Look at all my success with these big, influential companies that stifled my writing and didn't allow me to write what I really wanted to write. Aren't you impressed by all the great work I have done with the companies that are the very cause of sports journalism's downfall?"

Yes, I’ve had meetings with a few media companies about what I might do next. A Fox executive asked if I would be changing my column approach.

Can you taste the hypocrisy here? Jay openly has meetings with the very companies he is bashing in this column BEFORE he chooses to work with Genesis Communications. Doesn't it sound like Jay was pretty happy to again be a part of the evil mechanism that is a large media company, got rejected, so now he's pretending to be an "indie" writer who doesn't get censored and has no want to work for a large news organization?

“Nope,” I said. “Same guy, same column.”

Which sort of contradicts the whole "I have a new perspective" bullshit that Jay is peddling in this re-introduction, no?

Fox ended up downsizing its digital effort into a silly-season site, featuring such nonsense as a National Enquirer report that Lindsey Vonn is worried Tiger Woods will sleep with his ex-wife.

Says the guy who wrote a column for AOL about Tiger Woods sleeping with women other than his wife just a few years ago. I'm sure Jay didn't want to write this column, but was forced to by AOL.

A lot of companies and entrepreneurs are investing in sports media, but too many sites are hiring inexperienced writers cheaply or aggregating news from other sites — what happened to competing instead of giving each other credit for shared story links?

This coming from the guy who used to be on "Around the Horn" and just recently was touting his new freelance gig with ESPN. We all know how good ESPN has been historically at giving credit for shared story links. See, Jay wants to be a part of the system until it rejects him. 

I’m confident about this site because I’ve been there when so many haven’t — 14 Olympic Games, 24 Super Bowls and a wealth of World Series, NBA Finals, Final Fours, college football championship games, golf and tennis majors, title fights, etc. I’ve written my 6,500-plus columns, been on national TV a couple of thousand times, done my radio programs for years.

And yet again, who did Jay work for during the time he covered these events? He's so fake.

It’s called cred, which so many of the trashy sites don’t have and aren’t worthy of mention here.

Did you learn about the word "cred" when hanging out with Michael Keaton and talking to Owen Wilson once after you approached him unsolicited on the sidewalk outside a McDonald's?

People have asked if I’m ticked off at ESPN. I’m not ticked off at anyone, except the Black Keys for leaving “Everlasting Light” off the playlist the last time I saw them.

Jay listens to the Black Keys. He's hip and with "it."

"Everlasting Light" is the 12th most played Black Keys song. I will give Jay credit, I was trying to prove him wrong, but the Black Keys haven't played this song consistently of late in concert. So it appears Jay isn't lying when I thought he would be lying. After ripping him this whole time, I figured I may as well say he didn't lie about something.

Besides, I was part of a 5,000-person conference call the day the network established a zero-tolerance policy, and I’ve held myself accountable because I wasn’t cautious enough about a regrettable association.

Of course, Jay is accountable in that he doesn't blame himself for the incident or anything surrounding the incident, blames the police for having an agenda, blames the judge for not allowing experts to provide testimony on his behalf, and claims he pled no contest to stalking and assault charges to protect his family from the one-sided media horde. But other than that, he holds himself accountable and blames no one else for the situation he ended up being in.

The Mariotti Show is a site firmly planted in 2013 yet detached from the government-like climates of corporate media.

Which is the climate Jay would rather write in. You know Jay is hoping to play this Mariotti Show site into a gig with a corporate media company. Jay wants to get back on top so he can tell everyone who counted him out to kiss his ass. You and I both know this is probably true.

I can tell the truth about any subject I want, anytime I want, and no one can summarily spike content because your boss is friendly with a commissioner or owner, your company is in business with a league or team, your newspaper has a comped suite at the ballpark or your network has a rights deal through 2082 with a major college conference.

Which again, to be clear, these people and organizations that spike content are the ones who Mariotti set meetings up with before deciding to be independent and detached from the climate of corporate media. I think that says a lot. We'll see how much Jay has changed.