Maddenation
Dick Ebersol, Chairman of NBC Sports
Dick’s son goes to Notre Dame and ran for student body president last year. he promised to bring big-name bands and Saturday Night Live comedians to campus. That’s about all he promised, and I was cool with that because, hey, what does SB Prez do anyway? He/She might as well do something cool like that. Well, i started asking what other people thought, and i heard some bad sentiments about little ebersol. he drives a hummer, parks it wherever he wants, is a jerk, is a big jerk, he has a hummer (some serious negative points around campus), is a rich spolied brat, and he’s a jerk. you know what i’m saying.
that got me and a couple other guys in morrissey talking about the ebersols and one of my friend’s father (who will remain nameless) told us a story about Dick from the year before. [this story is true i’m pretty positive, though i didn’t ask how he heard]
he said that last year when dick was moving in his son, he couldn’t get the TV he just bought for his son to work. so he got pissed off and went back to the store and flipped out at the worker for selling him a broken TV. it turns out, all Dick had to do was plug the antennae into the CORRECT opening and it worked. so Dick felt embarrassed that he had yelled and insulted the worker, so, instead of apologizing, he went into his car (a hummer, maybe? after all, i’m sure it was a big TV) and returned with two guest tickets to Saturday Night Live, gave them to the worker, and said that all he needs to do is call the number and they’ll book a flight to NY and he can go for free.
The father who was telling me this story ended by saying something to the effect of, “now, i thought that was pretty nice, a noble thing to have done.” and i was like, WHAT?? this is the OJ simpson-get-yourself-out-of-trouble-for-2-tickets syndrome. i like to think i would have shoved those tickets up some orifice of the NBC chairman if he did that to me. it’s this kind of disguised bribery that people fail to notice and which bugs me.
Dan • Questions • 09/10/03 • 1 comments
Comments
Kathleen • 09/14/03 • 4:26 PM:I’m not so sure I agree. I think he needs to work on his communication (and tv set-up) skills, yes, but is what he did wrong? If he offered the tickets for something illegal or morally wrong, then it’d be bribery. I do see your point, somewhat, but explain to me more why you don’t like it. Do you think an apology would have been sufficient? Probably, but …
I think you’re saying that rich people shouldn’t be able to act like that and if the guy accepted the tickets and flight, he was reinforcing and perpetuating the behavior. Quite possibly. But then, what could be done istead to change the chairman’s behavior??
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