Am I a bastard for not liking these human interest stories?

Nope.

Sports are entertainment. We want it to be a distraction from the shite of this world, or the monotony of our lives.

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Why do some people deserve the spotlight over others.

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Not exactly related, but I used to wonder what the families of anonymous victims of 9/11 thought of Lisa Beamer and the rest of the handful of survivors who dominated the media afterwards

There are also all sorts of sick kids who don't get adopted by football teams.

Age makes you cynical I guess, you get more time to see the same thing over and over.

I agree. I also think it’s used to bring awareness but I think that can be accomplished in other ways.

The Olympics is the worst offender. You can’t watch an event without a heartwarming piece about a badminton player’s grandma or some such crap.

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Olympics

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This started it all. When NBC got the rights from ABC, which had it for decades, the focus of the games went from the sport... To basically an over abundance of Tom Rinaldi pieces.

Why? Apparney the NBC execs made a concerted effort to say the hell with sports fans, they're going to watch anyway, and market towards women.

Everything has to be about this athletes one-legged cousin who grows grapes now or that athletes "battle" out of poverty 9f the slums of wherever, etc etc etc.

I just want to enjoy the competition. I despise Rinaldi and his ilk.

As stated above, it's unethical to air this stiff out during the game.

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I had a media ethics class in college and they would certainly say these stories are unethical. The idea being that if it’s about an individual, there are lots of people having a hard time in life. Why do some people deserve the spotlight over others. You lose integrity for that.

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Eh. I don’t mind them highlighting people overcoming the odds.

I do wonder if some of the same people bitching about stories about resilience are the same ones who complain about kids like millennials being “pussies” or “snowflakes” and folding like a lawn chair at any kind of adversity.

I don’t mind hearing about athletes who are genuinely charitable and helpful.

The cynic in me knows that agents/teams/athletic departments now know that this is now the formula for a quick fix photo op PR makeover.

They’re emotionally manipulative.

At what point did Rinaldi segments on Gameday become an every week thing? I know they have more time to fill, but they were more impactful when it wasn’t a regular segment. Now, every week there’s some QB who has formed “an unlikely friendship” with a sick kid, or a team who is “dedicating the rest of its season” to someone.