Will Perk Play?
2009 January 6
So KARE-11’s resident sports clown Eric Perkins is at it again. Perk is poised to suit up for the Minnesota Swarm’s home opener this weekend.
The questions here abound:
- Does anyone really care if Perk suits up for the Swarm?
- Are people really going to buy tickets based on the possibility seeing Perk play?
- Why is it journalistically acceptable for Perk to become a shill for one of the teams he covers?
Sure, some people will say this is just a harmless stunt. But it really shows the vapidity of much of our local sports media — and KARE-11 in particular — that they think this sort of thing is OK as part of news broadcast.
if you did a little research, you’d find out perk’s three appearances over the past three seasons (played in ‘07, number retired in ‘08 and last weekend) have been three of the highest attended swarm games to date.
and i’m pretty sure money from tickets sold to those three dates have been donated to courage center.
if kare 11 wants to partner with a local sports team to raise money for a good cause, i say more power to ‘em! too bad some other media outlets don’t pull these kind of stunts!
I don’t care if the Swarm games have been well-attended or not. Sports reporters shouldn’t be shilling for the teams they are covering, even if some of the end result goes to a good cause. If Eric Perkins wants to help Courage Center, there’s a myriad of other ways he can do it that don’t compromise the integrity of KARE-11 as a news organization.
Now, KARE may not care about that, and Perkins may not care about that, but others do. It’s the same reason Sid Hartman shouldn’t be fundraising for the U and writing a column about them.