It finally happened. ESPN finally made Darren Rovell apologize for something. This is pretty shocking, as he’s been granted the latitude to be insufferable for a while, and so he must have done something pretty horrible, right?
Well, compared to the time he took a joke way too seriously and tattled on a college student, and the time he took a guy’s relationship too seriously and considered tattling on a college student, this one seems relatively tame. You probably didn’t read it, but in a column about the attendance at the Floyd Mayweather vs. Manny Pacquiao fight, Rovell called a man named Bobby Freedman a “loan shark.” He also did this in an appearance on SportsCenter after the fight.
This seems generally innocuous, especially if Freedman – who we’ve googled, but searches come up blank outside of this excerpt from a book that was published in 2004, so we’re not exactly sure about whether this dude exists – is actually a loan shark, but still, ESPN apparently wasn’t happy with the description. Someone edited the article, and it now doesn’t mention Freedman’s occupation:
Before the fight, Mark Wahlberg was arguing with Bradley Cooper, who was sitting next to Fox chairman Rupert Murdoch. To Cooper’s left was Yahoo chairman Terry Semel and Bobby Freedman. In front of Freedman sat former NBA stars Reggie Miller and Charles Barkley, separated by Turner Broadcasting president David Levy. Everywhere you turned, there was celebrity: agent Ari Emanuel, Steffi Graf and Andre Agassi, Jay Z and Beyoncé.
It also features a footnote, which reads: “A May 3 post on ESPN.com and segment on SportsCenter incorrectly characterized the occupation of Bobby Freedman. The characterization has been removed.”
The final step in atoning for this sin was to trot Rovell out onto SportsCenter and have him apologize, which you can watch right here:
According to Deadspin, the correction to the post was made a few days ago, and this apology only aired on ESPN for the first time at 1:27 a.m. this morning. There’s still no word on whether or not this will hurt Rovell’s brand as an unapologetic blowhard, but it won’t. Still, the fact that ESPN actually made Rovell apologize for being a blowhard is a refreshing change of pace.
