NBC Sports REMOVES analyst Mike Milbury for making 'insensitive' joke about women

[pwaldo]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...yoff-game.html

NBC Sports have removed National Hockey League analyst Mike Milbury for making an 'insensitive' and 'insulting' comment about women.

On Thursday, the 68-year-old sparked furor for making the off-color remark during a live broadcast of a game between the New York Islanders and Washington Capitals.

After fellow commentator, Brian Bouche, mentioned the NHL's 'quarantine bubble', Milbury quipped: 'There's not even any woman here to disrupt your concentration'.

In a statement released on Friday, the organization said: 'The National Hockey League condemns the insensitive and insulting comment that Mike Milbury made during last night's broadcast and we have communicated our feelings to NBC.

'The comment did not reflect the NHL's values and commitment to making our game more inclusive and welcoming to all'.

[Blueshirts30]

I want him gone permenantly. I hate him probably best thing to happen to nbc in a while was to have him off of nbc for the playoffs imo.

[costanza]

Addition by subtraction. Good riddance to that clown.

[30ranfordfan]

Mike Milbury has been a horrible analyst for years. This is after running the Islanders into the ground, as one of the worst GM's in league history. He was a mediocre coach before that, and a player whose career highlight was entering the stands, so he could beat a fan with his own shoe.

Normally, I would not watch a ton of games on NBC.... but when I did, and it was an intermission, and Milbury was talking... I would change the channel.

I do not understand why he was still on TV. Good riddance.

[icefields]

totally ridiculous !
c'mon this cancel culture crap has to stop.
1984 is real.
the above comments are because you dont like Milbury but while you applaud Milburys demise you dont see your own freedoms disappearing. and they are quickly disappearing especially in the States.
the left make all kinds of racist, ignorant comments all day long on TV - MSNBC, the View, CNN (crap news network) and the public outcry is absolute silence.
and one guy, a real nobody makes a comment MOST men would laugh at if they were honest and he loses his livelihood and you all are on board.
better be careful YOU could be next, say the wrong thing and its over.
i will prolly be banned for this. which would prove the point. but in a free country we ALL are supposed to have the right to speak our minds.

[30ranfordfan]

totally ridiculous !
c'mon this cancel culture crap has to stop.
1984 is real.
the above comments are because you dont like Milbury but while you applaud Milburys demise you dont see your own freedoms disappearing. and they are quickly disappearing especially in the States.
the left make all kinds of racist, ignorant comments all day long on TV - MSNBC, the View, CNN (crap news network) and the public outcry is absolute silence.
and one guy, a real nobody makes a comment MOST men would laugh at if they were honest and he loses his livelihood and you all are on board.
better be careful YOU could be next, say the wrong thing and its over.
i will prolly be banned for this. which would prove the point. but in a free country we ALL are supposed to have the right to speak our minds.

If anyone asks "should we ban @icefields for his comment on the Milbury thread" - There will be a quick "no" vote from me, lol.

If Milbury had actually been a quality analyst, and this was simply a one-off, I suspect he wouldn't have been let go. Given an unpaid vacation maybe. Easy comparison to draw would be Don Cherry. When he went on his racist rant.... I don't think that was even the worst thing he'd ever said on the air - but it was the final straw. I have a hard time believing that Milbury, over the years, hasn't been told to tone down a lot his rhetoric. Far too often he's come off as not just sexist, but xenophobic.

The free speech argument goes both ways. Of course Milbury is free to speak his mind, say whatever he wants (there's limits to that, in a legal sense, but that's not really the point). I don't think for one second, anyone is suggesting that Milbury be jailed for his comments. That's what freedom of speech means. The state will not persecute him because of what he's said.

NBC, as an entity, has freedom of speech too. They're allowed to not like something Milbury said. They're allowed to hold their broadcasters to whatever standard they want. They're allowed to make sure they only keep people on the payroll that meet the standards they expect. Fans & Viewers have freedom of speech too. They're allowed to tell NBC how awful they believe his comments were.

Freedom of speech does not, and has never, equated to freedom of consequences of that speech.

Why should NBC continue to employ a man that makes them look bad? If he comments were a twitter rant, and his job was working in the mail room - and nobody but 38 followers noticed.... while it doesn't make the comments any less asinine, it does mean that likely nobody would notice, nobody would care, and we're not talking about a role that makes one a public face of the company.

I do not understand how "freedom of speech" is supposed to mean "nobody is allowed to cut ties with me, due to what I said". NBC having some kind of obligation to keep Milbury on the air, despite him being an embarrassment to the company, would quite literally be the opposite of free speech.

[RGM81]

totally ridiculous !
c'mon this cancel culture crap has to stop.
1984 is real.
the above comments are because you dont like Milbury but while you applaud Milburys demise you dont see your own freedoms disappearing. and they are quickly disappearing especially in the States.
the left make all kinds of racist, ignorant comments all day long on TV - MSNBC, the View, CNN (crap news network) and the public outcry is absolute silence.
and one guy, a real nobody makes a comment MOST men would laugh at if they were honest and he loses his livelihood and you all are on board.
better be careful YOU could be next, say the wrong thing and its over.
i will prolly be banned for this. which would prove the point. but in a free country we ALL are supposed to have the right to speak our minds.

As I've often had to tell online free speech warriors, freedom of expression doesn't mean freedom from consequences. NBC is not, last I checked, an arm of the federal government. It is a private corporation and it has a responsibility to protect its shareholders from embarrassment and the types of situations where there can be blowback against the organization. As others in this thread have stated, Milbury was long past his best-before date (just like Don Cherry) and regularly said things that were dumb, out of touch, and ignorant. There are so many talented young hockey analysts who are chomping at the bit to take the reins and lead the game in a progressive direction that will advance the values of openness and inclusion that the game is seeking.

It's sad to me that you think you "will prolly be banned for this" because, no. You're allowed to be on the wrong side of the fence.

[piper1]

Why did they hire him in the first place. It is not like there was a shortage of better options.

[jameslacarte]

Welcome to the 21st Century, where everyone is offended by something!! Every day its something else!! I sure miss the old days, when life was much simpler. See whats happened now that you can no longer spank your children? They grew up to be a generation of whiners!!
All you have to do is scroll through FaceBook for a few minutes to see what i mean.

[jameslacarte]

& a Huge AMEN to you!!

totally ridiculous !
c'mon this cancel culture crap has to stop.
1984 is real.
the above comments are because you dont like Milbury but while you applaud Milburys demise you dont see your own freedoms disappearing. and they are quickly disappearing especially in the States.
the left make all kinds of racist, ignorant comments all day long on TV - MSNBC, the View, CNN (crap news network) and the public outcry is absolute silence.
and one guy, a real nobody makes a comment MOST men would laugh at if they were honest and he loses his livelihood and you all are on board.
better be careful YOU could be next, say the wrong thing and its over.
i will prolly be banned for this. which would prove the point. but in a free country we ALL are supposed to have the right to speak our minds.