Does anybody remember Rob Parker? He was the Shemp of the Three Stooges act known as First Take. Parker has been no stranger to controversy at the local and national level. At the close of the 2008 NFL season, he resigned after he infamously asked Lions coach Rod Marinelli if he had hoped his daughter hired a better defensive coordinator. Somehow after that went down he became one of the favorite sons of ESPN’s Embrace Debate movement as a utility man behind carnival barkers Skip Bayless and Stephen A. Smith. Parker’s star was on the rise at ESPN so much that he was even touting an opportunity for his own First Take weekend show in November 2012. That came crashing down the next month when he asked if Robert Griffin III was a “cornball brother” on national television. Those comments effectively ended Parker’s ESPN tenure.
Since then, Parker has gone back to the local scene working for ClickOnDetroit.com and been absent on the national scene… until now.
Fox Sports Live had a debate about the NL MVP award Tuesday night and wouldn’t you know who showed up but one Rob Parker.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RV64_2UI6lw
Let’s try to connect the dots here. FS1 hires former ESPN executive and Embrace Debate czar Jamie Horowitz, who made a career at ESPN over pushing lowest common denominator content. Then FS1 hires ESPN from Colin Cowherd. And now Fox Sports Live is showcasing people from the First Take scrapheap?
Honestly, who watching that last night thought to themselves, “YES! Finally I can have Rob Parker’s sports opinions back in my life!” There are literally thousands of sports columnists, commentators, and bloggers with some new and interesting voices that FS1 can give a platform too. Instead, they chose to gave it to a disgraced ESPN retread. Why would anyone want to watch FS1 if it’s just going to be repeats of the worst of ESPN? This is not the sports alternative America needs or deserves, Fox.
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