Original Article: Former NFL player and ESPN analyst Sean Salisbury has seemingly made some big waves in the blogosphere by threatening to sue Gawker Media-owned sports blog Deadspin (not to mention ESPN itself).

Deadspin has posted a slew of what the blog claims is messages from Sean Salisbury, sent from his iPhone, in which he threatens legal action (in a very grammatically incorrect way). By slew, I mean a seemingly never-ending chain of tantrum-fueled, vengeful, threats. Interestingly enough, the whole thing is aimed at restoring Salisbury’s reputation, which he claims has been tarnished in large part by Deadspin, who has referenced alleged incidents from the past in which Salisbury showed cell phone pictures of his penis to employees of ESPN.

I cannot attest to the accuracy of such allegations, but if these messages to Deadspin really are from Salisbury, I have to say, he’s not doing a very good job of managing said reputation. If he sent them, he would have had to assume they would end up being posted at the site (from the same company that produces Valleywag, mind you). To get an idea of what we’re talking about here, read Deadspin’s posts here and here. I would provide a sample, but I wouldn’t know where to begin. There are so many of them.

Meanwhile, people on the web seem to be having a good time at Salisbury’s expense:

Now because of the rantings, people are talking about Salisbury more than they ever would have otherwise. He is even showing up on Google’s Hot Trends multiple times. It’s certainly putting him in the spotlight, but if it’s his reputation he’s worried about (again, assuming these messages really did come from him), he’s got a thing or two to learn about online reputation management practices. I wonder how long it will take to recover his reputation after this. Now it’s not going to be only articles about him showing his penis showing up in Google results. It’s going to be articles about him showing his penis and articles about him raving like a madman (regardless of whether or not he ever showed his penis to begin with).

Currently, the top two natural results on Google are Salisbury’s Wikipedia entry, and a Deadspin article called "If Sean Salisbury Asks You to Look at his Phone, Don’t do it." It doesn’t get much better after that. By the way, the Wikipedia article also mentions the penis incident.

Sports blogs Deadspin and Foul Balls picked up on the story, as reported by the Washington Post. The new rule has been in place for a month, with news organizations trying to get the league to relent.

No other league places such a limitation on web video, apart from game footage. However, Major League Baseball, the NBA, and the NHL do not have the same level of appeal that the NFL enjoys in modern-day society; hockey in particular needs all the coverage it can get.

Exclusive lengthier video of player and coach interviews will be on NFL team websites, where the teams can manage their advertising and access for maximum profit.

The policy has drawn a video response from one NFL reporter. The Houston Chronicle’s John McClain posted a video response to the NFL policy, which satirizes the 45-second interview video limitation.

“There are a number of reasons for [barring videographers], but it’s basically a content issue,” Redskins spokesman Chris Helein said in the Post. “I won’t hide . . . the fact that the NFL and everything that surrounds it is valuable content.”

“Because the billion dollars a year the league makes just isn’t quite enough to keep dinner on the table,” Foul Balls retorted.

What Deadspin’s Will Leitch has found is a tremendous roadblock in the form of eBay’s lucrative payment processing arm, PayPal. The establishment of and subsequent donations to the Adam Knox Fund have been trapped in a morass of legalese and confusion on PayPal’s part.

The frustration boiled over this week, as illustrated in a post on Deadspin about the delays:

It isn’t the first time PayPal has taken a legitimate effort to help others and squeezed off an account. During the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the owner of SomethingAwful.com attempted to help by accepting donations for the Red Cross by donating funds through his site via PayPal.

As ConsumerAffairs.com noted, PayPal locked the account, citing fraud concerns as the reason.

Direct donations to the Red Cross would have avoided that issue. But a purely grass roots effort, one that PayPal benefited from through the fees it charges per transaction, has hindered an attempt to bring a modicum of goodwill to the people most directly impacted by the fall of a soldier.

Judging by the numerous comments on Deadspin regarding PayPal’s actions, the payment processor doesn’t have many pals on that sports blog right now.

UPDATE!: Deadspin now says the PayPal problem has been resolved, and the charitable funds have been released for their intended use.

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David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.