Well then. That headline got your attention didn’t it? It was clear on Wednesday, when I labeled Glazer the “Media Winner”, that I was impressed with the FOX reporter, but today he took that to another level. In a brief interview with Newsday’s Neil Best, Jay gave some insight into the biggest NFL story in years was scooped in an Orlando airport and even threw a potential jab at ESPN….

Fox’s Jay Glazer has compiled a string of NFL-related scoops, but he had to go beyond the usual call of duty to win the Brett Favre-to-the-Jets sweepstakes late Wednesday night.

He spent nearly 24 hours in the Orlando airport waiting for the news to come down.

“I never wanted to kick Mickey Mouse’s — — so much in my life,” he said Thursday from the office of Panthers coach John Fox, whom he originally was to visit Wednesday.

“Dude, you get real creative when you spend an entire day waiting for a huge scoop in a damn airport,” he said. “I felt like Tom Hanks in ‘The Terminal.’ I started making friends in the stores.”

So the story goes like this (allegedly)….

1) ESPN’s reporters are all over Favre. They suck up to him early on basically laying all their eggs in one basket. Text messages fly and the reports start rolling out all in Brett Favre’s favor.
2) GM Ted Thompson isn’t happy that he is getting dumped on by the biggest Sports Media entity on the planet.
3) Rachel Nichols ends up with Brett Favre on a tarmac in Green Bay (there’s really no reason for this here besides the fact it was funny to write).
4) Glazer wisely chooses Thompson for information knowing that a GM would know that his OWN DAMN TEAM would know about a trade before a player would (crazy I know).
5) Glazer is told from “sources unknown” to not board a plane to Charlotte that day, and sat in the airport all day waiting for word.
6) Glazer gets the call from his “sources unknown” and goes live with the biggest NFL trade story in the history of the game at 10:45pm.
7. ESPN is still talking about Tampa Bay’s plans up until about 11:25pm.
8) ESPN catches on at around 11:30 or so and scrambles to verify. They credit Glazer for a good 30 minutes before changing, “as reported by FOX Sports” to “as confirmed by Michael Smith”.
9) End scene.

Arguably one of the biggest trades in Sports History was found, scooped, and written, all in an Orlando airport over 1,300 miles from the scene. How awesome is that? Healthy competition is something ESPN hasn’t had for awhile now and I’m stoked to see new ideas and new people getting to things first these days. It’s about damn time and someone needs to start the slow clap for Jay, immediately.

Update: As SOTG pointed out in the comments that “Mickey Mouse” comment could have been in reference to being in Orlando. I’ll see if I can’t get a confirmation one way or another.

Fox’s Glazer spends day in airport, gets Favre scoop (Newsday)

(Oh and having someone [*ahem*MichaelSmith*ahem*] verify a story through a press release doesn’t mean shouldn’t continue to give credit where credit’s due.)

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