Antonio Brown at a Miami Heat game in March 2022. Mar 26, 2022; Miami, Florida, USA; Former NFL player Antonio Brown gestures to the fans while standing in from t of former professional boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr. during the second half between the Miami Heat and the Brooklyn Nets at FTX Arena. Mandatory Credit: Jasen Vinlove-USA TODAY Sports
NFLTwitterBy Andrew Bucholtz on

Controversial former NFL wide receiver Antonio Brown now has another feud with media members. Brown has been known for many criticisms of media over the years, and he was at it again Monday. There, in particular, he took issue with NFL news aggregator and BroBible writer Dov Kleiman, seemingly over Kleiman posting a TMZ story last week about another warrant issued for Brown’s arrest over non-payment of child support. Kleiman then tried to explain that to Brown in both tweets and direct messages, but Brown kept going, even posting the direct messages between him and Kleiman. Here are some of those exchanges (language warning):

It’s unclear why Brown is going in on this a full week after that story came out. And it’s not obvious what specifically he’s disputing; TMZ’s reporting on the issuance of that warrant hasn’t been disputed elsewhere, regardless of if it did lead to an arrest or not, and Brown hasn’t clearly refuted it here (his “a warrant is a check that comes from social security” comment makes no sense). It’s also not fully clear Brown is taking particular aim at Kleiman with lines like “b**** a** reporter” and “cracker,” as Kleiman was only one of the many people and publications that covered the arrest warrant story. Here’s what Kleiman tweeted on that front on Aug. 22:

There are a couple of potential reasons why Brown chose Kleiman as his target rather than TMZ. For one, the @TMZ and @TMZ_Sports tweets of their story only picked up 20 and 22 retweets respectively, while Kleiman’s initial aggregation of it had 1,473 retweets as of 10:30 a.m. Monday (and his follow-up, on the story from earlier this year of another warrant for Brown over unpaid child support, received 26 retweets). For another, Kleiman used language (specifically, “to be arrested”) that neither TMZ (“cops ordered to arrest”) or other outlets covering it used; “to be arrested” suggests the arrest is happening, but, as Kleiman noted later in his tweet, the arrest could be avoided with a $20,000 payment (as happened with that first arrest warrant earlier this year). And it’s not the first time Kleiman’s particular style of aggregation (which often, as in this case, comes with tweets that only tag the originating outlet and don’t link their story), and the traction his aggregation draws, has seen him take fire that probably should have been directed at the original reporters.

Kleiman isn’t the only media figure Brown went after Monday, though. He also weighed in on his former Pittsburgh Steelers teammate Ryan Clark, an ESPN analyst since 2015:

https://twitter.com/AB84/status/1696135775060935136

Clark weighed in on this as well:

We’ll see what comes of this. But it’s certainly not the first controversy around Brown, or his first fight with media.

[Antonio Brown on Twitter]

About Andrew Bucholtz

Andrew Bucholtz has been covering sports media for Awful Announcing since 2012. He is also a staff writer for The Comeback. His previous work includes time at Yahoo! Sports Canada and Black Press.

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