Todd McShay is Getting Heat for Attending SOTS...

You mean when Bob Iger was leading a group involved in relocating an NFL franchise there might have been a conflict of interest when ESPN fired Bill Simmons for criticizing the NFL? 

feels like this was a back channel complain by the SEC to ESPN since they are joined at the hip these days....

Willie Mays the same and expect him to be "unbiased" and "objective" after Harbaugh visited his home.  

Gee, showing up on his own time to an event he was invited to that had a charitable cause attached to it.  He has so much to be ashamed of.

I get the whole, "Tell your employer" thing.  The rest screams of hurting in various posteriors in EL, Columbus, and SEC country.

for turning in a rather lackluster performance.  You could tell by the 2nd half of it that he was just done and really had nothing to say about the recruits.

I think it does present future conflict of interest problem for McShay. Charity or no, was likely paid by UM to work and provide his "analysis." On the other hand, who are we kidding? It's not like Desmond Howard, Lou Holtz, and Herbstriet don't have their own conflict of interest issues (alumni). He's a sideline reporter, not a presidential candidate.

Eveveryone on earth understood he was there solely to be part of a fund-raising event.

Anyone that did not, is a mouth-breathing, donkey-molesting idiot.

I can understand his employer fussing the effect his actions have on their image. That's what useless carbon atoms stuffed into blue suits do.

But, I cannot understand any reasonable person buying into this "scandal".*

 

*Except the SEC where a mind is a terrible thing.

Trolling article headline is trolling.

Saying that "ESPN’s Todd McShay Says It Was A ‘Mistake’ To Attend Michigan’s ‘Signing Of The Stars’" is misleading. Todd's actual quote said he made a mistake, but never specified what that mistake was. Based on how his statement was structured, it seems that the mistake he was referencing was not letting boss man at ESPN know about it. But, I suppose click bait and all makes the idea of the author being transparent less important.

His mistake was sitting next to Lou Holtz in a suit that just came back from the dry cleaners.

 

Guy needed Goretex.

I thought he did a great job of breaking down players despite not being a high school recruiting guy.

Sometimes the SEC bias by announcers is a tad annoying. And by tad annoying, I mean fuck them.

Jemele Hill is shocked, SHOCKED to learn there could be bias in sports entertainment.

It would be like if ESPN ran a TV network for a specific team and/or conference......

I mean, I know the comparative records and all. But Harbaugh has done the impossible and made the entire SEC our step little brother.

It will be an unpopular position, but he should have let his employer know that he was doing this.  So his mistake was in not letting them know.  He is a celebrity talent evaluator, and he was deployed in a talent evaluator role during the Signing of the Stars event.  This "it was for a charity" has some weight, but isn't dispositive.  In addition to mimicing his pre-draft shtick (and therefore potentially watering it down), the style of him breaking down the players was similar to the style he uses on ESPN.  It had a lot of earmarks of being an ESPN production.

To be clear, I think he really added to the event, especially from the perspective of the recruits.  As much as people here seem to dislike him, I think he's far better than Mel Kiper.  (I would love to stumble across an email from Kiper volunteering to attend, and having Harbaugh say "nawh, we've got that desk covered - but thanks, and here's a coupon for some hair grease".)  I'm really glad McShay was there, and helped make money for ChadTough.

But he still should have let his overlords at the WWL know what he was up to.

Not even my own stupidity :)

While I completely appreciate the sarcastic note in the OP, I don't think ESPN has any problems with a conflict of interest. Whoever the author of the article is implies that, McShay only seemed in trouble for not telling his employer. I don't thihnk ESPN would have even said no, I think its just more of him appearing in a capacity similar to his ESPN job, in which case ESPN would have liked to vet SOTS to make sure there was nothing that could negatively implicate ESPN. There is absolutely no conflict of interest in McShay praising a bunch of high schoolers highlight tapes.   

McShay was merely an MC for the event and a guy like Tirico who lives in A2 ...but who didn't become famous by stalking high school boys, would have been a more appropriate selection..

ES(EC)PN must really be upset about the IMG thing to take it out on Todd McShay.

Isn't he mainly an NFL draft evaluator?  I don't see the big deal with him at an event geared toward high school recruits.

I noticed on ESPN's tracker leading up to national signing day they were going to be covering certain schools all morning every half hour. Every school listed was SEC with a couple ACC schools thrown in (FSU, Clemson and one or two more). 

How is that providing fair and unbiased coverage while fullfilling journalistic integrity?

There's such a flood of shit content being spewed forth it seems people can say what ever they want even if it is contradicatory to something else they are doing because there is no way the average person can keep up.