Hype. It makes the modern sports, news, and entertainment industry tick. It’s a style over substance world and sports fans know this all too well where it’s not always the best and most successful teams that draw the most media coverage – it’s all about the stars, the personalities, and the brands.
And in 2024, this seems like it’s more true than ever before. The most talked about teams that ESPN has covered are the New York Jets and Dallas Cowboys this year when they have a combined 6-13 record and are well out of playoff contention. But they certainly aren’t alone. Charles Barkley openly makes fun of the national Lakers obsession. MLB shows pretty much every Yankees-Red Sox game on national television. And Lionel Messi’s Inter Miami got what amounts to a free pass to the Club World Cup even though they suffered a first-round MLS Cup playoff exit.
Alas, there comes a time when hype no longer matches results, yet the media insists on living in an alternate reality.
But when it comes to the Mount Rushmore of overhyped athletes, there can only be four. So who are the most overhyped, overcovered, and oversaturated athletes in sports? Here’s the list that we have etched into stone along with some honorable mentions.
Tim Tebow
How could the list start with anyone else?
There was only one TebowMania and there really isn’t a better microcosm for the way the entire sports and media industries have changed over the last decade-plus. Tebow was a star in college at Florida, winning a Heisman and a National Championship. But his style of play was always going to face an uphill battle in the pros.
Enter his biggest fan: Skip Bayless.
Bayless hitched his wagon to Tebow and Embrace Debate was born. There may never be another athlete that matches the heights of TebowMania, where both his supporters and detractors had equal levels of ammunition. TebowMania was really the first story driven by the 24/7, social media-infused sports media cycle where it was the debate that drove coverage more than the results themselves.
Unless you were there to live it, it’s truly impossible to communicate just how much ESPN lost their minds collectively as an entire network over Tim Tebow. We’re talking live tweeting press conferences, birthday celebrations, a ca pella groups, and so much more. It’s been 12 years since I sat through a Tebow-free edition of First Take that mentioned Tebow well over 100 times and I think the little piece of my soul that died that day has never come back.
And all of that was before his “baseball career.”
In a strange twist of irony, Tebow now works for ESPN at SEC Network and is just another cog in the wheel of the network’s college football coverage.
Bronny James
The entire reason why this list is being written now is the fledgling NBA career of Bronny James. For years we waited to see if LeBron James would fulfill his wish to become the first NBA father-son duo with Bronny. Yet what should have been a great story (and probably still is) became awash with the realization that it was a little too orchestrated for everyone’s liking.
After thankfully overcoming a health scare, Bronny did not find much success in his freshman season at USC. In spite of that, he entered the 2024 NBA Draft as a fringe prospect. It’s fair to say Bronny James was the most talked about second-round pick in NBA history as he was unsurprisingly drafted by the Lakers.
That hype and speculation continued into the first game of the season where a joint LeBron-Bronny appearance was pre-planned for the second quarter. Bronny only played a few minutes and then spent the rest of his opening night on the bench. And after scoring his first NBA points in Cleveland, he’s been shipped to the G League for development. That move hasn’t really gone well yet either.
The only player talked about more than Bronny James this season may just be his dad. Although he got the coverage of Ken Griffey Jr. as far as father-son combos go, it will be a huge undertaking for Bronny to even have a better professional career than Gary Nicklaus at this point.
Freddy Adu
It’s easy to forget, but Freddy Adu’s MLS debut was one of the most hyped stories not just in sports, but the entire country. He appeared in a commercial with Pele when he was 14 years old and immediately became the highest-paid player in MLS when he signed for DC United. As a teenager, Adu was destined to be the USA’s first real global superstar in soccer and would single-handedly put MLS on the map.
Except it never quite panned out.
Adu would show some flashes of brilliance and solid play, even earning a USMNT call-up in 2006 at 16 years old. But once he traveled to Europe and signed with Benfica in 2007, it was one loan odyssey after another as Adu was quickly forgotten about. He ended up not as a global superstar, but as an anonymous journeyman. He scored just 28 goals in his entire club career which ended in 2018.
Adu suited up for a whopping 16 teams in his professional soccer career, mostly among lower European leagues and even in the NASL and USL stateside. Even to this day, MLS has never reached the heights it did when Freddy Adu was centerstage. Even with the GOAT himself Lionel Messi coming to play for Inter Miami, it’s mostly happening behind an exclusive paywall.
Even Adu’s record fell as Cavan Sullivan became the youngest-ever MLS player for the Philadelphia Union this season, beating his record by 13 days. Ask yourself how many sports fans know Cavan Sullivan’s name and you’ll see just how different things are now from the days of Freddy Adu.
Dak Prescott
Perhaps this honor is a cruel one for Dak Prescott. He’s been very good for several years as an NFL quarterback. But he’s also cursed with the fact that it’s been with the Dallas Cowboys as they have endured through a lengthy era of postseason futility.
Had Prescott put up his numbers and had his success for any other team in the league, he’d be lifted as an above-average quarterback and consistent performer – maybe somewhere between Kirk Cousins and Jared Goff. But with the Cowboys, his every move is scrutinized and he’s faced with being the most talked about athlete in America even though he has fewer Pro Bowl appearances than Derek Carr.
Don’t believe me? Just look at how much the sports media talked about Prescott during the offseason this year. His contract situation was covered on the same level as LeBron James. He even got way more coverage than Patrick Mahomes, who just so happened to have won back-to-back Super Bowls.
This is nothing against Prescott, rather it’s a reflection of the media’s ridiculous obsession with the Cowboys. When two cable networks (ESPN and FS1) are driven by either Cowboys hate or love, and most all of your games are in national television windows, it’s going to drive an obscene amount of coverage your way. So it doesn’t matter if it’s Dak, Tony Romo, or Cooper Rush, whoever the Cowboys quarterback will be will likely always have a permanent spot on the overhyped Mount Rushmore.
Honorable Mention
Here are some of the athletes that just missed the cut for Mount Rushmore, but can take solace in the fact that they are at least remembered for something if not for their brilliant play.
Anna Kournikova – Let’s be honest, we all know why the Russian tennis star was so heavily covered throughout her career. Although she did rise to 8th in the world, she never won a singles tournament before retiring in 2003.
Brian Bosworth – The Boz was a phenomenon during his college career at Oklahoma as football’s favorite bad boy. When he entered the NFL with the Seattle Seahawks, he did so after being given the most expensive rookie contract in NFL history at 10 years and $11 million. He only made it 2 seasons due to injury and his greatest NFL contribution was being posterized by Bo Jackson.
Dan & Dave – If you grew up in the 1990’s, the Dan & Dave Reebok commercials are seared into your memory. Incredibly, after an entire marketing campaign built around Dan O’Brien and Dave Johnson before the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, O’Brien failed to even qualify for the USA Olympic trials. The ad campaign was awkwardly retooled and Johnson got a bronze. Thankfully, O’Brien found redemption by winning the gold four years later in Atlanta. Just without the ad campaign this time.
Johnny Manziel – Johnny Football followed the Tebow playbook – a brilliant Heisman Trophy winner who flamed out in the NFL. After being drafted by the Browns in the first round, Manziel only played 14 games with 7 touchdowns in his entire two-year NFL career. But thanks to his celebrity and long history of off-field issues, he had enough coverage that would span a lifetime. His playing days ended in something called Fan Controlled Football.
Yasiel Puig – When Yasiel Puig joined the Dodgers he looked to be baseball’s next great superstar. But much like Manziel, injuries and off-field troubles took their toll. After an All-Star berth in 2014, Puig fatigue sat in and he was out of the majors by the time he had even hit 30 years of age.
Aaron Rodgers (Jets) – Arguably the most frustrating and infuriating nominee is Aaron Rodgers’ career with the New York Jets. From the darkness retreat to the Achilles injury and ridiculous comeback talk to the endless conspiracy theories, it has been one long roller coaster into the abyss that America has been forced to ride with Mike Greenberg. If only he had just stayed in that cave and not come out.
Jeremy Lin – Linsanity was like a brilliant meteor that flashed across the sky and was here one minute and gone the next. Maybe calling Jeremy Lin’s astonishing performances for the Knicks in February 2012 “overhyped” is harsh, because there was a month where he was the hottest athlete on the planet. But given Lin’s NBA career flamed out as quickly as it appeared from nothing, the insane heights of Linsanity haven’t aged that well over the years.
