ESPN Quits Film Project on Concussions in N.F.L.

[elleng]

ESPN on Thursday ended its official association with “Frontline,” the public television public affairs series, on a two-part documentary about concussions in the N.F.L. that is scheduled to be televised in October. After 15 months on the venture, ESPN chose to strip its name, logo and credit from the films, “League of Denial: The NFL’s Concussion Crisis.”

ESPN belatedly focused on the fact that it did not have editorial control of what appeared on “Frontline” long into a collaboration that has already resulted in nine joint television and online reports that have appeared on ESPN’s “Outside the Lines” program, on ESPN.com and on the “Frontline” Web site. Together they also created Concussion Watch, a database that tracks concussions and other head injuries in the N.F.L.

Chris LaPlaca, an ESPN spokesman, said, “In hindsight, we should have reached this conclusion much sooner.”

But Raney Aronson-Rath, the deputy executive producer of “Frontline,” said that ESPN executives had for more than a year understood the ground rules of the collaboration: “Frontline” would keep editorial control of what it televised or put on its Web sites, and ESPN would have control of everything it televised or posted on the Web.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/23/sports/football/espn-exits-film-project-on-concussions.html?hp

[geomon666]

1. LaPlaca said ESPN’s decision...

was not based on any concerns about hurting its contractual relationship with the N.F.L. And I believe him. I mean really, what could the good people at The Walt Disney Company and Hearst Corporation have to hide?

[MADem]

2. Afraid to bite the hand that feeds them, I'd say--no matter how they try to deny it. nt

[Recursion]

4. Yup. I always thought ESPN getting big broadcast contracts was a bad idea

ESPN is great as a sports journalism network. As just another sports broadcast network, it loses that advantage.

[Recursion]

3. Damn. ESPN used to be good journalists

That's a shame.