ESPN Commentator Knocks Sports Blog Offline

Forget about botnets. If you want to knock a Web site offline, all you need is a nationally syndicated radio show.

That's what ESPN Radio personality Colin Cowherd discovered last Thursday, when he urged his listeners to visit a sports blog called Thebiglead.com, flooding the site with so much traffic that it was shut down, and then booted off its Romanian Internet service provider's Web server. ESPN is a U.S. sports network that offers TV and radio broadcasts and operates a popular Web site.

"Wouldn't it be great if we went and basically gave out every day, like a new young web site: Just blow it up," he said in a recording of the broadcast, published on the Internet. "One that's annoying."

"I'm going to give you a Web site. I want you to go to it as fast as you can," he exhorts listeners before naming The Big Lead.

On Sunday, ESPN ombudsman Le Anne Schreiber blasted Cowherd's behavior, agreeing with listener complaints that the attack was, "immature, irresponsible, arrogant, malicious, destructive and dumb."

ESPN's ombudsman quoted the sports commentator as bragging to listeners about the attack. "We shut it down in 90 seconds," he is quoted as saying. "We don't even know thebiglead."

Later, Cowherd said, "We apologize -- but just don't screw with us." before asking listeners to knock the site down again, "just for fun."

The Big Lead bills itself as an independent sports blog run by "three 20-something friends, one of whom was previously a sportswriter." The site's operators say their blog was offline for 48 hours as it scrambled to find a new service provider.

In a Monday blog posting they were at a loss to explain why Cowherd had singled out their Web site. "There appeared to be no rhyme or reason behind his malicious attack," they wrote. "One of two things happened -- ESPN put him up to this to silence one of its many critics, or Cowherd feels the need to pick on bloggers in hopes of getting people to talk about him."

However, the Big Lead admitted that it had referred to Cowherd in less-than-flattering terms in the past.

In an e-mail interview, the bloggers said they were considering legal action, "It truly is sad that a national radio host for the largest sports entity in the country felt compelled to pick on a Lilliputian blog." They compared their blog to political watchdog sites and said that "until the last year, no blogs had really covered ESPN in such a manner."

ESPN's Schreiber said that the network had spoken with Cowherd and was now implementing a "zero tolerance" policy toward such behavior.

Though they were clearly angry at Cowherd, the Big Lead bloggers also thanked him for helping them move to a more robust service provider. "If Howard Stern, Rush Limbaugh and Dan Patrick mentioned our blog simultaneously on air, we could withstand it," they wrote. "We've long needed that swift kick in the pants, so thanks, Colin."