What college bowl game would be desperate enough to ink a sponsorship deal with a company headed by a raving homophobe who also thinks grown men should actively pursue teenage girls? The Independence Bowl, apparently. Last night, the third-tier bowl inked inked a sweetheart sponsorship deal with Duck Commander.
Duck Commander, the family-owned company led by the Robertson clan of "Duck Dynasty" television fame, is the new sponsor for the Independence Bowl, sources said.
The Duck Commander Independence Bowl will be the name of the Shreveport, La., bowl for the next six years, a source said. The bowl game, which previously was sponsored by AdvoCare V100, also is returning Independence to its name after a one-year hiatus.
The story was actually
broken by Tim Fletcher, host of a sports-talk show on KWKH in Shreveport, a 50,000 watt clear-channel monster that reaches most of the central portion of North America at night. Independence Bowl chairwoman Missy Setters subsequently
confirmed to KSLA-TV in Shreveport that the deal will be officially announced at a press conference on Wednesday.
I was probably one of the few liberals who thought A&E was too harsh in suspending Duck Commander patriarch Phil Robertson, if only because it should have given him a chance to agree to a disclaimer on the air before his now-infamous remarks about gays. But he and his family have officially been dead to me since December, when we learned about this video in which Robertson actually suggested grown men ought to pursue 15- and 16-year-old girls as possible wives. And they should have been dead to anyone else looking for sponsorship money. But apparently not--just a few weeks ago, they agreed to plaster the Duck Commander name on a NASCAR race. And now this. Disappointing, to put it mildly.