Year of the Sex Scandal

Raise your hand if you love a good sex scandal?

It seems like everyone nowadays has been caught under the covers doing something, or someone they’re not supposed to.

Sex scandals have dominated the headlines, and sports sections of the newspaper have been no exception.

You can thank Tiger Woods and his bevy of mistresses for this one. Apparently, the Woods everyone knows and loves on the golf course is also the Woods everyone knows and loves in the bedroom.

What’s the count up to these days? Fifteen women? Twenty? Hell, Huffington Post has the count up to 121. No joke.

Anyways, the Woods/Stripper/Porn Star/Sex Rumpus saga has taken the average sex scandal to a whole other stratosphere, especially for sports.

What makes it so interesting is Woods’ clean cut and straight-laced image. It’s hard to imagine Woods having an outstanding parking ticket, let alone a sex addiction.

Woods isn’t the only popular athlete in hot water. Take Ben Roethlisberger for example.

Professional athletes make a boatload of money. With a lot of money comes a lot of attention, both good and bad.

So when Big Ben decided he wanted to hit the sauce at a college bar in Georgia, it didn’t go unnoticed.

Maybe Ben had a few too many drinks and got a little handsy. Maybe he didn’t. Either way, his late night/early morning stunt landed him a six game suspension and possibly his career.

Roethlisberger took the suspension without argument, which makes you wonder a little. You have to also remember this isn’t his first run in with a girl claiming he was a little too friendly.

Although these are completely different incidents with completely different outcomes, the basis is the same. Sex stories featuring big name athlete’s make for big news. Big news makes for big $$$.

Did you watch the Tiger Woods press conference? It was probably sponsored by Heineken.

The press conference was on every sports channel on cable. ESPN ran it on everyone of its channels and streamed up-to-date quotes from the press conference across the bottom of the screen. It probably had ratings hovering around the final episode of M.A.S.H.

The root of this problem goes far beyond an athletes fall from grace. It has to do with the news stations that find it necessary to continuously cover these events.

It’s almost a guarantee that Huffington Post, the Internet news sight that claimed Woods’ mistress count was up to 121, has a story on Tiger up on its sight right now.

It probably features quotes from someone named Porches, or Stormy, or whatever pornstars name themselves these days.

You can’t blame Woods for the downfall in society. Sex tapes existed long before Woods’ dad duct taped a putter to his hands, and he won’t be the last to make the mistake of hitting the record button when he wants to get frisky.

Blame credible news sources for going all TMZ on everybody and replacing real news with gossip.

The things we do to make money.