The Michael Sam Traveling Salvation Show

Being the first openly gay player in the NFL is big business and everyone is going to buy a ticket to the media circus.

When you’re the first at anything, it’s a given that people are going to show up to come along for the ride. But when you’re the first openly gay player in the NFL (key word here being openly), well everyone is going to show up at the trough.

There are numerous arguments out there in the mediascape as to whether or not Michael Sam is a pioneer or just another someone with dreams of playing at the highest level. On the surface, there’s nothing that separates Sam from any other rookie, and the fact that he’s gay is certainly something that only matters to the people who felt the need to make news about it.

From the moment late last year when Sam decided to publicly come out prior to the NFL Combine and Draft, all eyes have been not only on him, but on the league. Making the decision when he did was designed to take the sting out of any possible outing by the same media that couldn’t wait to praise him for his bravery.

Now that it’s done, and he achieved his goal of actually being drafted in the seventh round by the St. Louis Rams, the next phase of the Sam Circus begins, as Oprah Winfrey‘s OWN just ordered a reality show centered on Sam as he prepares to earn a spot on the team, something that Rams Head Coach Jeff Fisher says isn’t a guarantee.

“[I]t’s going to be very competitive for him, as it will be for some of the other guys, the later picks, because of the depth and the talent level at the position,” Fisher said. “He’s going to have to come in, and like the rest of his new teammates, these rookies, they’re not in shape. Not in the condition our veterans are in. He’s going to have to work to get in great shape and we’ll blend him in the offseason program and we’ll go.”

Regardless of Fisher’s claim that Sam will be treated like every other rookie fighting for a spot, it’s difficult to accept the idea that the First Team to Draft an Openly Gay Player™ would turn right around and become the First Team to Cut an Openly Gay Player™. Far too much time, money and effort has been spent on making Michael Sam the media darling the pigs at the trough wish for him to be.

Now don’t get me wrong, this isn’t necessarily his fault, all he wants to do is exactly what the hundreds of other players, regardless of sexual orientation, want to do: play in the NFL. While being gay shouldn’t matter, we are reminded daily not only by the endless media coverage, but also the insensitive comments and tweets from people both public and private, that being gay matters…a lot.

Take Amy Kushnir, a co-host of the Dallas morning show The Broadcast, who stormed off-set Wednesday during a debate concerning Sam kissing his boyfriend during last weekend’s draft.

On it’s own, the fact that there was even a debate was ludicrous enough, but the notion that these women felt it was important enough to decry a how a man celebrates something tremendously personal to himself and his loved ones comes off as far more offensive than any one of them could be about a man kissing another man in the first place.

While people expose their own level of narcissism in their offense of men kissing, they take little to no umbrage over the reports of domestic violence reaching epidemic levels in the NFL, most recently surrounding a player for the Carolina Panthers, arrested on charges of domestic violence, accused of strangling, beating and threatening to kill his girlfriend. Somehow two men kissing is more of a danger to young, impressionable football fans than a man punching a woman in the face and threatening to kill her, something that’s happening with far more frequency.

Ultimately, the media drives the boat on this situation, and whether they’re trying to get ratings via shock value, or there’s some other financial benefit in the public attempt to “normalize” a gay man, as long as Michael Sam is a story because of his sexuality, people will show up for tickets to the circus, and that says far more about the public than it does about Michael Sam himself.

In time, if he makes the roster of an NFL team, he will fade into the background of manufactured hysteria and simply be just another football player, with the hope that if he makes the news, it’s because of something he did on the field. If he doesn’t make a roster, we’ll go through the motions of wondering if he was cut for being gay, effectively squeezing the last bit of notoriety out of a man who had less of a choice in the matter than the rest of us.