Inside Fox Sports’ Controversial Hire of Urban Meyer
By Tom Jones for Poynter
For the uninitiated, there’s something in the media world known as the Friday news dump. If you have news that you might feel sheepish about announcing, you wait until late on Friday — when everyone is headed out for the weekend — to make your announcement.
You put it out there, hope no one notices and count the minutes until happy hour.
That’s what Fox Sports basically did Friday. It was so quietly announced that it went unnoticed by many until Monday. So here’s the news: They have hired former coach Urban Meyer as a college football analyst.
For the uninitiated, the hire seems like a good one. Meyer had a heck of a career coaching college football, he worked as a broadcaster before (including at Fox), and has name recognition. That’s a pretty good resume for a broadcaster.
So why not make a big deal about it? Why go with the down-low Friday news dump? Why not trumpet it from mountain tops?
It’s true that Meyer won national championships in college football at Florida and Ohio State. But it’s also true that his time at Ohio State came to an end after a scandal over how he handled (or mishandled) an assistant coach accused of domestic violence. Meyer eventually landed as the head coach of the NFL’s Jacksonville Jaguars— that’s really where his coaching career went haywire.
As ProFootballTalk’s Mike Florio wrote, “He abandoned his post after a Thursday night game in Cincinnati, failing to accompany the Jaguars home to Florida after a tough loss. Instead of returning with his team, he drove to Columbus for the weekend, where he was publicly videotaped cavorting with a woman who isn’t his wife. He allegedly kicked a kicker (he denied it), and he allegedly was verbally abusive to players and coaches.” For more, click here.