Many people took notice when a Sports Illustrated analyst dismissed women's sports as "not worth watching" earlier this week. Unfortunately for SI's Andy Benoit, two of those who noticed were Amy Poehler and Seth Meyers.
Benoit apologized for his tweet, which was made in response to a colleague ribbing him about his disdain for watching the FIFA Women's World Cup.
But his apology didn't come soon enough to stop Poehler and Meyers, former Saturday Night Live castmates, from reuniting on Meyers' Late Night show for a takedown aimed at both Benoit and other critics of women's soccer.
Poehler responded to Benoit:
"I guess I'm not surprised that you work for Sports Illustrated. You guys put out a swimsuit issue very year dedicated entirely to women who aren't in sports — unless you think that it's a sport to cover both boobs with one arm."
Meyers added:
"You can't give it up for a group of women who are representing the U.S. against the world — yet I bet you're the same guy who sits inside on a nice day and watches the NFL draft — the NFL draft: A full day to find out if your favorite college player is going to have to go mansion-shopping in Jacksonville or Tampa Bay. I mean, really."
From there, the pair went on to criticize U.S. TV networks for their lack of high-profile coverage of women's soccer. And they noted that Friday's game between the U.S. and China will be broadcast on Fox, while some earlier games had been relegated to Fox Sports One.
"Nobody knows where it is!" Poehler yelled.
For the sake of perspective, we'll note that TV viewership for the U.S. women's World Cup games has been shattering records, with numbers comparable to the Stanley Cup final. This past Monday, the Round of 16 game between the U.S. and Colombia was the highest-rated cable program, outpacing offerings from WWE Entertainment and others.
For a while on Thursday, the Wikipedia entry for Andy Benoit had been revised, before being restored to its normal status. One entry that was removed, for instance, stated that Benoit "currently lives in Boise, Idaho, forever alone."
As we noted, Benoit has apologized for his statement, saying in part: "My sincere apologies for last night's senseless tweets. I got carried away responding to playful ribbing ... and, in my stupidity, overcompensated by saying something ignorant and extreme. 100% mistake on my part, for which I'm deeply sorry."
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