ESPN host Hannah Storm was speaking as much as a mother as a SportsCenter anchor when she closed Sunday morning’s show with an emotional anecdote.
“On Monday morning I was genuinely excited to come to work and break down what I thought was a fascinating first weekend in the NFL,” she said.
“Instead, I kicked off ESPN’s coverage of the horrific Ray Rice elevator video. Meanwhile, one of my daughters has her first fantasy football team this season, but at breakfast this week, instead of discussing how her team was doing, we watched the Ray Rice video play out again in all its ugliness.
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“I spent this week answering seemingly impossible questions about the league’s biggest stars. ‘Mom, why did he do that? Why isn’t he in jail? Why didn’t he get fired?’”
The National Football League’s has drawn fierce criticism after the way it handled a domestic violence case involving three-time Pro Bowler Rice that has led to calls for the league’s commissioner Roger Goodell to step down.
“What does this mean for female fans whose dollars are so coveted by the NFL?” she asked. “Are female fans, who make up 45 percent of the audience, supposed to compartmentalize everything that’s happening? Are we supposed to separate the violent acts on the field form the violent acts off the field, and if we do, what message does that send?”
Here’s the video: