Mea Culpa Monday: ESPN Radio (Sun, April 1 - Sat, April 8 )

We're sorry we shut down someone elses Web site.
April 09, 2007 | 01:32 PM
Shepherd Express

"Our airwaves should not have been used for this purpose. We apologize."

That simple public statement, emailed to me and countless others by Josh Krelewitz of ESPN's public relations department, brings an unsatisfying end to a cake-takingly inappropriate stunt performed by one of it's sportscasters.

ESPN Radio host Colin Cowherd has long held a bizarre relationship with the Internet. A little over a year ago he was caught reappropriating a humor piece for his show without attributing it to the prominent blog that wrote it. But if he loves the content (its so stealable!), he hates the authors even more. On Thursday, Cowherd instructed his listeners to conduct a DNS attack on The Big Lead blog because he thought it would be funny.

A DNS attack is the Internet equivalent of a U-Boat blockade. Vandals overload a server with so many requests that the server shuts down. It is a form of terrorism. It is not how well-meaning adults communicate.

On the radio show, Cowherd portrayed The Big Lead as a site chosen at random, as one of a number of "annoying" blogs that he would take out in the coming weeks. "Wouldn't it be great if we basically gave out every day a Web site – a new, young web site – and just blow it up?"

Cowherd instructed the audience nationally syndicated show to simultaneously visit the site. He closed The Big Lead in 90 seconds and kept it down for 48 hours.

With it went the advertising revenue that The Big Lead would generate over a two day period and the articles occasionally critical of ESPN. With it went any sense of decorum. The Godzilla of sports media had torn apart a kitten of competitors.

The radio show made clear that Cowherd knew at least some of the effects of what he was doing. He commented to his in studio team of co-hosts that overspending a Web site's bandwidth causes an owner to pay more in monthly bandwidth fees.

"Don't you find this a bit amateurish?" asks a co-host.

"Yes I do," responds Cowherd. "But I'm having a great time."

ESPN Ombudsman Le Anne Schreiber wrote in her column today that ESPN had instituted a "zero-tolerance policy" against radio personnel using the airwaves to hinder other businesses in the future. They didn't have a policy until now, because no one had conceived that a Collin Cowherd would overstep the boundaries so far.

Though the goal was to remove something annoying, Cowherd has only succeeded in generating more annoyances. Now it won't just be the blogs scrutinizing his every move, but also his bosses.

The Herd with Colin Cowherd can be heard weekdays from 9am to 12pm on WCLB.