ESPN Radio hack Colin Cowherd today urged his listeners to flood The Big Lead sports blog in an effort to cause the website to go down. Cowherd was successful, and as of 5:07 PM Eastern Time, TBL is unavailable.
Quoting Deadspin on the mechanics of a ‘Denial of Service’ attack:
Sports blogs are not truly important, and it would certainly matter more if a site like CNN or MSNBC was downed by one of these attacks (however unlikely that possibility may be). That being said, it is unconscionable and unprofessional for someone to use their bully pulpit as a means to commit a silly, high school quality prank.
There is no question that Cowherd should be fired for this. Unfortunately, he will not be. While he does not offer ESPN anything other than extra hot air (of which the network already has a surplus), he has been given extra platforms as of late (for example, the insipid Missing Link program on ESPN Classic). Certainly, the Worldwide Leader is not going to dump an up-and-comer on the basis of a misdeed done to a sports blog the network very likely has on its blacklist.
Nobody is of the opinion that sports radio talk show hosts are supposed to be intelligent, interesting or even remotely mature. In fact, to be successful, a talk radio host must be the complete opposite — insipid, ignorant, ruthless in his or her inability to have the slightest modicum of tact (see Rush Limbaugh and his cohorts).
It is quite possible that Cowherd fits all of those adjectives. Like the overwhelming majority of Americans, I have never listened to his show, so I could in fact be quite wrong on that issue. That being said, even if it is acceptable in the shock jock, prank calling, lowbrow world of talk radio, one must imagine that it takes an awful amount of insecurity and inner pathos to attempt to strike down a sports blog with far fewer readers than The Herd has listeners (that, of course, is a product of the vast reach and large platform that Cowherd has).
Does The Big Lead have recourse? I would imagine so. Hypothetically, if the site sells advertising space, then the several hours of downtime may have cost the site (and its advertisers) a fair amount of cash. As to whether or not TBL would go through the motions of bringing legal action against Disney-backed ESPN over what essentially amounts to a five-year-old’s idea of a good prank, I cannot say.
