The video of Ray Rice hitting then-fiancee Janay Palmer in the elevator of an Atlantic City casino was "one of the biggest stories" TMZ has ever done in terms of traffic, and an exec from the website noted there are "more revelations to come," according to David Zurawik of the Baltimore SUN. TMZ Sports Exec Producer Evan Rosenblum said, "The stuff that's out there has kind of opened the door to a whole bunch of other story points such as what's going on with the NFL. Did the NFL really not see the video? What kind of effort did they make to see the video? Why didn't they make a better effort to see the video?" Rosenblum later in an e-mail exchange wrote regarding the Revel Casino, where the incident occurred, "Our Revel sources are confident that someone associated with the NFL viewed the tape." But he added, "We do not believe that that 'someone' was Roger Goodell or any other NFL 'higher ups.'" Rosenblum when asked why he believes TMZ got the video as opposed to the NFL said, "It's a combination: They weren't trying very hard, and we outhustled them. This is a story that's been important to us since we broke it seven months ago. We've spent our time and energy making sources in hot pursuit of what really happened that day" (Baltimore SUN, 9/10). YAHOO SPORTS' Dan Wetzel wrote TMZ "is more than willing to muddy the waters here on Goodell, suggesting on Monday night that it knows two NFL employees saw the Rice footage and then saying on Tuesday morning that no one from the league asked the casino for the video" (SPORTS.YAHOO.com, 9/9).
HOW DID TMZ GET VIDEO AND NOT THE NFL? In Boston, Christopher Gasper writes it "defies credulity that TMZ.com could get its hands on the video and the most powerful sports league in North America, a league populated with influential billionaires and masters of the universe, couldn’t procure it." It also is "more than a coincidence that it was TMZ, not of the league’s media partners, that broke the cone of blindness on the video" (BOSTON GLOBE, 9/10). In Chicago, Barry Rozner writes we are "supposed to believe nobody from the NFL knew how to get it, with all their billions in revenue and all their resources, while TMZ did?" (Chicago DAILY HERALD, 9/10). CBS Sports Network's Jim Rome said, "Don't insult me by saying that you were unable to get the video. TMZ had no trouble getting it, so what is your excuse, Commish? Either you didn’t want to see it, or you did see it and still handed down a cowardly two-game suspension. Either way, you were clearly looking to cover this up or just make it go away" ("Rome," CBS Sports Network, 9/9).
SPORTS PUSH PAYS OFF: In N.Y., Jonathan Mahler notes TMZ, which "built a following by exposing the foibles of Hollywood celebrities ... is now taking aim at a whole new category of prominent people and powerful institutions" with the sports industry. TMZ was the first media outlet with audio of former Clippers Owner Donald Sterling's racial comments that led to him selling the team. Now, its acquisition of the Rice video has "raised questions about why the league hadn’t obtained the footage itself." It is "easier to penetrate the veil when you’re willing to pay for information, not to mention audio and video recordings, which TMZ does routinely and unapologetically." TMZ has "decided to move beyond Hollywood and into sports after it helped break the story of Tiger Woods’s extramarital indiscretions" in '09. It took TMZ Sports a few years to "start breaking big stories, but its moment seems to have arrived." Deadspin Editor Tommy Craggs: "There are a lot of stories on which TMZ absolutely eats our lunch. They have more money and better resources, and when they want to be, they’re every bit as gutsy as we like to think we are" (N.Y. TIMES, 9/10).
