Darren Rovell Complained About the Lack of "Talent" at Playboy's Super Bowl Party
By Tim Ryan
As you might expect, his comments were not well received. Sports Illustrated’s Richard Deitsch kicked off the backlash rather nicely with a humorous response of “I imagine these women are saying the same thing about the quality of CNBC’s sports business reporters.” Then Rays third baseman Evan Longoria, surely with future motorboating in mind, came out of nowhere with a steel chair, followed by Playmate Jamie Edmondson, who was at the party. The feisty former Miss January brought the pain:
“What really sparked the rude comment that @darrenrovell made (because I was there) is that when he asked to take a photo w/ me on the red carpet, the closest person to us was on the phone and advised they were unavailable because they were in the middle of handling an issue at VIP check in and to see if someone else could take it…he then said to me in a snotty fit ‘Oh not even for my 175,000 Twitter followers’ and stormed away.”
If true, this might be one of the sadder, more humorous displays of ego and inflated self-importance that we’ve seen in sports media in quite some time. It’s stories like this one on top of strange, statistic-based statements like “I’ve been at 11 out of 12 Playboy Super Bowl parties” that cause people to find Rovell so insufferable. I suppose that “stat” technically does allow him to make such a judgment about the on-hand talent going south, but it certainly feels like he’s conducting a puzzling dick measuring contest with himself, complete with the burning need to do so in a rather large public forum; a crowd of 177,599 onlookers to be exact.
It would probably be wise of Rovell to throw some mild sauce on his shallow delivery, or perhaps he comes off this way intentionally. After all, here we are talking about Darren Rovell on Super Bowl Sunday. Perhaps I’m the asshole.
Finally, here’s a telling picture of the Twitter king standing by himself at the storied party, likely tweeting tales of a flaccid Friday night. If that were me, I’d be pissed too.