Did Fanhouse cross the line?

Posted by | 07/29/2008 at 7:34 pm

A minor furor is erupting over a new feature on Fanhouse.com that seems to the final step towards combining sports with sex.

The Fanhouse has obtained the services of FantasySportsGirl.com to provide “the hottest fantasy sports experts around.” The fairly scantily clad Fantasy Sports Girls’ stated purpose is to provide “fantasy advice as you prepare for drafts over the next few weeks.” Additionally, though less publicized, the site has been using advertisements touting Fanhouse Fantasy Football as being “easy, stripped down and flexible.” Classy.

Somewhat surprisingly, the new feature is not going over particularly well in the blogosphere.

In a piece titled “The Fanhouse We Knew And Loved, Is Officially Gone“, Awful Announcing says that while “no site on the Internet is without sin when it comes to objectifying women” the feature is “just wrong on so many levels.” Fanhouse writer Jez Golbez says on his Hockey Rants blog that he “felt rather sick at the obvious and cheezy pandering I was subjected to.” We Are the Postmen calls it “tasteless, it’s banal, it’s embarrassing.” Jamie Mottram, who helped launch the Fanhouse, writes on his Mr. Irrelveant blog, “Not only is it unbelievably bad content, but it’s in unbelievably poor taste and reeks of executive ineptitude and shortsightedness.” D-Wil at Sports on My Mind says “it seems that even the women of FanHouse have been undercutted, their value demeaned, and the true perception of their worth exposed.” One anonymous Fanhouse writer told The Sporting Blog‘s Chris Mottram, “Most of us at FanHouse are furious over Fantasy Sports Girls are and trying to figure out how to react. … This just fell out of the sky with no advance warning, not to us and apparently not even to the people we bloggers are supposed to report to.”

Part of the displeasure over the Fantasy Sports Girl addition centers on the fact that the Fanhouse is fairly progressive in terms of female representation. Additionally, the site is a WNBA sponsor, and even sponsored WNBA Dads and Daughters nights earlier this season. Awful Announcing: “Fanhouse has employed a ton of very talented females involved in editing and content since its inception and this has to be a slap in their collective face.” Signal to Noise: “The sad part is that the Fanhouse had one of the larger stables of writers who happened to be good and were also women … apparently Alana Nguyen (better known as Miss Gossip) has left the site not even a month after getting the top job — and being the first female head of one of the bigger box sports blogs. Wonder if this feature had anything to do with the departure, don’t you?“

Overall, the critical reaction is justified by itself. However, one can consider it somewhat naive and/or hypocritical when taking into account the amount of sexism that exists in the blogosphere.

Is Fantasy Sports Girl really any different from the needless pictures of women who have nothing to do with sports on sites such as The Big Lead or With Leather, or the “Girls Photo Gallery” section of SportsByBrooks? Is it really different than countless posts about Erin Andrews — who certainly is not getting attention because of her prowess as a sideline reporter — or a “Would You Do” tournament of attractive female sports reporters?

And if Fantasy Sports Girl is inappropriate, why is it okay to reduce the WNBA brawl or the recent Danica Patrick/Milka Duno scuffle to catfights? In fact, why is it okay to make fun of women’s sports at all, simply for the fact that they’re women? Why is it okay for a headline on The Big Lead to proclaim that tennis player “[Elena] Dementieva May Save Wimbledon Coverage“, presumably because she’s the last traditionally attractive player in the field?

We Are the Postmen says there’s a difference between the typical objectification of women seen on blogs and Fantasy Sports Girl. “Try [With Leather and Fanhouse writer Matt] Ufford’s Attractive Olympian bit. He plays around with it and self-mocks, knowing it’s for the AOL Welcome Screen and its ease of page views. And at least there’s some intelligence to it. This Fantasy Sports Girl bit is just bad. Really, really bad.”

The Attractive Olympian feature on the Fanhouse is said to “[handicap] which athletes may rake in endorsement deals after the Olympics,” but is more of an evaluation of various female Olympians’ looks. The feature has turned into a tournament where people vote on the “Hottest Olympian“, even including its own “Sexy Sixteen”. Whether one wants to judge the intelligence or self-deprecation of the feature, there does not seem to be much separation between that and the Fantasy Sports Girl videos.

The question becomes, why start respecting women now?

If there is going to be such a groundswell against the Fanhouse Fantasy Sports Girls, shouldn’t there be one against tournaments judging what athletes or reporters are the most attractive? Or against posting pictures of women in bikinis next to articles that have nothing to do with them? Shouldn’t there be an uproar when female tennis players are judged only on their looks? Or when someone like Pam Ward — who, whether you like her work or not, has achieved far more in her career than Erin Andrews — gets referred to as a man or a lesbian and is generally disrespected?

All the Fanhouse is doing is presenting this sexism in its barest form. There’s no sarcasm to lessen the sting of it. Perhaps that is what irritates so many. The accepted forms of sexism, the objectification of athletes and reporters, the denigration of female athletes, the bikini-clad models next to posts they have nothing to do with, are far more dangerous simply because they pretend to be something they’re not. At least Fantasy Sports Girl is pure, unvarnished sexism.

  • Chris Mottram

    I think you’re missing the point on more levels than I have time or space to comment on here, but I’ll just add this: This Fantasy Sports Girl stuff is different because AOL decided to add this horrible, offensive, lowest-common-denominator content without asking any FanHouse blogger. Not one. Obviously, the content on FanHouse reflects on all the bloggers there.

    What’s worse is that this will be an on-going series throughout the entire NFL season, which AOL is paying for. That is obviously far different than posting a playful photo of Erin Andrews every now and again.

  • Chris Mottram

    And PS: The anonymous FanHouse blogger spoke with me, not Shoals. Hence the “ed. note” on our post at TSB.

  • Paulsen

    Chris,

    My point isn’t that Fanhouse bloggers shouldn’t be offended that this was done without their consent. I’m just saying that it seems odd that so many view the Fantasy Sports Girl videos as more offensive than any of the other stuff that’s out there.

    – Paulsen

  • Chris Mottram

    Again, you’re missing the point big time. No one is outraged or offended that there are scantly clad women on the internet. It’s about how and where and in what context it’s happening. No one is trying to start a crusade again skin on sports blogs, except maybe you.

  • kellydwyer

    It’s just as offensive. There’s no difference between that video and the bikini models that TBL and With Leather were throwing on their site back in 2006.

    Some supposedly self-effacing, tongue-in-cheek bit about whoever TBL/Ufford et al references being out of their league doesn’t do anything to lessen their brand of sexism or the witless, unmitigated puerility.

    And it doesn’t matter that they cop to it. It’s not disarming, and it doesn’t take away from the dozens of ways they make it embarrassing to be a sports blogger.

  • Chris Mottram

    sigh.

    This FanHouse incident vs. objectifying women, or whatever, are two totally separate arguments, battles, etc.

    Again, this isn’t a big deal to FanHousers just because it’s offensive. I think I’ve already laid out the other reasons why.

    And Kelly, really? You’re embarrassed to be a sports blogger cause TBL or WT or whoever posts some bikini photos?

  • jim

    Why is this a big deal? Some semi-cute girls are dressed like strippers talking about sports. It’s harmless fun. Are you guys just looking for something to get self-righteous about?

  • PostmanE

    The reason people at FanHouse are upset is because their 2+ years of effort to make the place a successful, relatively equal, intelligent place to talk sports have been undone in a night. Their names are now associated with something they have no control over. That’s the issue.

    Kelly, I love ya and respect your writing more than you know, but that sort of logic is the same thing that allows Bissinger to paint all bloggers with the same brush. I’m not embarrassed for the dumb shit TBL does/writes, because I’m not TBL. You should no more be embarrassed for TBL than Thom Yorke should be for Chad Kroeger.

  • MCBias

    The last paragraphs of your article represent an argument the sports blogosphere needs to have. What is acceptable when it comes to noticing or commenting on an athlete’s sexiness? I would argue that as long as the person commenting doesn’t start mentioning body parts or post pictures where significant skin is shown, it’s ok. So by that standard, the Hottest Olympian series is ok from what I’ve seen, but many of the “here’s a hot chick with our link dump” posts are not.

    That said–Chris, I didn’t agree with Paulsen quite that much until I looked at the arguments you were trying to make. Let me try to understand your arguments. So it would have been ok…as long as the Fanhouse bloggers were asked and were sexist enough to say yes? Or it’s ok…because other sites on the Internet have scantily clad women, and so sports sites on the Internet deserve to have them as well? Or it’s ok to put pictures up…as long as your site didn’t pay for them and thus can let others do the work? (And in that case, what do you say to Sports By Brooks?). I don’t completely agree with Paulsen, but I will if that’s the best argument you can come up with.

  • Sean O

    I looked at the Fantasy Girls as pathetic, not offensive. Talk about your cheap ploys, it was just so over the top in using sex to lure people in. Watch hot chicks with boobs talk about football.

    That’s the difference, like I’m going to care what some chick has to say because she has a huge rack. It’s actually more insulting to men.

    It really isn’t close to pictures of attractive women in sports…just like the few sports blog run by females have pictures of guys butts and such. People like sex but there was just something unseemly about this, you could smell the desperation.

  • kellydwyer

    Chris,

    Yes, every other blog is making the point that it sucks that the FanHouse bloggers have had to deal with this. TSN covered that end of it expertly.

    This is the only site that is taking the issue of the fantasy videos to the next level, and working on something a little more important than whether or not these guys are embarrassed or not. We know they’re embarrassed. It’s time to move on.

    That’s why I’m commenting here, instead of on Shoals’ or Wilson’s post. If I wanted to talk about how wronged the FH bloggers were — and they were — I’d go to those posts.

    Chris, you’re essentially going to the comments section of a blog that is discussing the payroll ramifications of the Texiera trade for the Angels, and posting, “you’re missing the point, the point is that the Angels got a great first basemen!”

    No, they’re not missing the point. That’s not what they’re talking about.

    We’re talking about the FanHouse decision as it relates to the blog world as a whole, and not the wronged bloggers on their payroll.

    And, yes, I am embarrassed by that stuff. It’s consistently embarrassing to go on Ballhype and see that the top 10 blog posts of the day are littered with pictures of sideline reporters’ rear ends when so many other brilliant blogs are coming up with great content that can’t hope to make the top 50.

    It’s also unfortunate that I can’t go to a solid sports journo link dump without having to deal with unchecked lasciviousness that really serves no purpose other to remind people that Megan Fox is awfully pouty.

  • kellydwyer

    postmane,

    we’re stuck in such an insular scene, though, that it’s tough.

    Because of the cross-linking and the interactive nature of sports blogs, we’re not forced to go wade through some of the web’s (the web!) lesser lights, but it’s close. If we want to stay abreast of things (I’m not topping this off with a pun, I’m not), we have to surf, we have to check out link dumps, we have to go to Ballhype.

    Thom Yorke can sit in his actual studio basement and churn things out without even having to know who Chad Kroeger is. But, sadly, it’s not a comparable lifestyle. We’re essentially forced to sit through the Grammies once a week, or watch VH1, or read Circus and SPIN every week if we want to be on top of things. We can’t be as isolated, though lord knows I’ve tried.

  • Anonymous

    I can’t believe I’m defending Ufford, since I can’t stand/don’t read With Leather, but the Attractive Olympian feature on Fanhouse had both male and female athletes and so, to this reader, felt much less objectifying and offensive by virtue of leering at men and women.

    Otherwise, I agree completely, though I’d wish you’d pointed that, actually, there are internet sites that are without sin when it comes to objectifying women. Like, I dunno, possibly ones about sports written by women?