Tim Noonan
When you get paid for your opinions, it's like dancing on a volcano. Self-censorship often means self-preservation. This goes, that doesn't. Careful now. Fortunately in print, we get a do over. No one will ever see what I cut out of this column, nor should they. It didn't work so out it goes. Now stick a microphone in front of someone and ask them 'what say' and the stakes change immeasurably, particularly in this day and age of omnipresent media self-empowerment. What you say is irrevocable when the camera, any camera, is rolling.
I don't know Andy Gray but I know his voice. I have been hearing it for years on English Premier League broadcasts. But I won't be hearing it anymore because Gray is now officially unemployed. As one half of Sky Sports' top EPL broadcasting team, Gray was pulling down close to US$3 million annually to spout and spew his knowledgeable opinions. Last weekend, while preparing for a match between Liverpool and Wolverhampton, Gray did a bit too much spewing. Upon hearing that a female linesman would be used in the refereeing crew, he could hardly contain his disdain.
Although he and his broadcast partner, Richard Keys, were not on air, they were still speaking into a microphone. 'Well somebody better get down there and explain offside to her' said Keys. 'Yeah, I know. A female linesman,' replied Gray. 'Can you believe that? That's exactly what I was saying. Women don't know the offside rule. Why do we call them linesmen?' To which Keys replied: 'The game's gone mad.'
So what do you think? Personally, I've heard much worse talk around sports - too many times to count. It's ridiculous and it's pathetic, but it was off the record. Unfortunately for Gray and Keys, though, one of their colleagues managed to get their recorded remarks plastered all over the media. Sky Sports was so furious it suspended the pair for all of one game, but when more recordings of their boorish and sexist behaviour started to emerge a day later, Gray was fired and Keys resigned. Just like that, the golden voices of English football for nearly 20 years were gone.
Many footy fans in Asia will be familiar with Keys through his work over the years on ESPN's First Edition with John Dykes. Temporarily contrite, Keys initially dismissed their rant as 'lads mag banter' before personally apologising to the female official and anyone else who may have been offended. 'Prehistoric banter isn't acceptable in the modern world,' he said. 'I accept that. We failed to change when the world has changed.'
But the fact that Keys and Gray had kept their jobs this long shows the world has changed a lot less than he thinks. Two things you can't be in the broadcast booth these days: sexist and racist. Violate either and you will get stuck clearly in the media crosshairs, which is where both Keys and Gray have spent the past week.
This is not the first time Keys has said something he regretted on air or off and, despite being occasionally chastised by his superiors, it was actually his decision to leave the network because he could not imagine continuing in the broadcast booth without Gray. As for Gray, only the suits at Sky Sports expressed shock at his behaviour.
The Scotsman, known as 'Randy Andy' for his relentless womanising during his playing career, has long been an easy target for the tabloids. They have had a field day with his drunken forays in southern Spain, as well as birthing four children with four different partners and stealing the wife of his best friend of 30 years, an ex-model. The list goes on and on but somehow I doubt Sky hired him because of his outstanding moral fibre. They looked the other way until they couldn't look that way any more.
This is not exactly a revelation but I could bet that at least one of the execs working at the network that fired Gray has likely echoed similar sexist rants over cocktails with his TV chums. It's the nature of the beast and it's also the nature of the beast that when you wade into the chauvinistic and profane world of sports, it's not always pretty. For jocks and ex-jocks like Gray, this is their domain and what they say and how they say it is the time-honoured language of their domain.
Over the past few months, the HBO network in the US has aired in graphic detail two behind-the-scenes sports shows. Their 24/7 series focused on the NHL's Washington Capitals and Pittsburgh Penguins in the run-up to the New Year's Day Winter Classic game. Capitals coach Bruce Boudreau unabashedly drops more F-bombs in one show then you would hear in a season and a half of The Sopranos.
Same thing for foul-mouthed New York Jets coach Rex Ryan on HBO's Hard Knocks about the NFL team. But that's what happens when you bring the cameras into the locker room every day. It's a bastion of machismo by necessity. You want the PG version? I guarantee you no one would watch - and both shows were hits, by the way.
Far more offensive were the words of Gray and Keys. I would love to think the media furore over this would help change the way pro sports operate. When you take a man's livelihood away, and a lucrative one at that, it should send a powerful message. But sexism, and to a larger degree racism, has existed forever in the world of sports. These days it exists in a quasi-covert manner. Only time will tell if it will be truly eradicated or if the perpetrators will merely be much more vigilant about how and where they discuss it.
