I got a couple of questions asking why ESPN’s Michael Wilbon hates the Nielsen TV ratings in the USA and loves the TV ratings in China.
That’s easy: he either is a man with a huge inferiority complex about the NBA not being nearly as popular as the NFL or he plays a man with a huge inferiority complex about the NBA not being nearly as popular as the NFL on TV.
I think Norby should reach out to Wilbon’s agent with a simple message: We’re paying him a lot of money based on ratings he doesn’t even believe in. I could cut his pay in half and he’d still be making 2X a lot of people with more talent. Let’s discuss.
Wilbon’s conspiracy theory-esque behavior around NBA vs. NFL is very disingenuous but it’s very disingenuous about something that doesn’t really matter.
But here’s a question: should ESPN feel obligated to curtail this bad behavior nonetheless? Not because it’s dangerous here but because behaving that way here normalizes the behavior elsewhere?
Elsewhere that kind of behavior is dangerous.