It seems some Philadelphia media members are taking a whataboutism view of the vile Eagles fan who called a female Packers supporter an “ugly c–t” on Sunday and subsequently lost his job.
Jon Marks, a podcaster with PHLY Sports, and Kyle Pagan, who writes for popular Philadelphia sports blog Crossing Broad, both referenced how Alex Basara, the fiancé of the harassed woman who filmed the stunning incident, set up a GoFundMe to attend the game and questioned his intentions.
The pair did both admonish the Eagles fan, since identified as Ryan Caldwell, amid their questioning.
“The vulgar Eagles fan is clearly a POS, but the Packers fiancé who filmed the incident has a lot going on. How much did he instigate this?” Marks tweeted. “Look at his attitude going into the Linc. He was wearing a body camera to video stuff for content. He also has multiple GoFundMe’s to pay for his travel to Packers games etc. Need more info, but it feels like we’ve been manipulated by this dude.”
Pagan’s piece cut right to the point with a no-holds-barred headline: “Now That Big Dom Took Out the Eagles Trash, Let’s Talk About this Cockroach Packers Fan.”
He focused on how Basara asked for fans to “send me into the belly of the beast” for the game.
Basara’s request noted how he previously had expletives used against him, had “stuff” thrown at him and a cheesehead he was wearing tossed into a “fire bin” while attending an Eagles home game.
“Does that not feel like a guy who’s fishing for content a little bit and got one dumb Eagles fan to eat the trash? He grew up in Pennsylvania. He knows how Eagles fans are. He asked his viewers to send him there so he could go inside the belly of the beast and he went inside it. It just so happens the belly contains an old guy yelling ‘c–t’ at his lady the entire game,” Pagan said.
“Now, to me, this is clear as day the reason why security was never notified what was happening. You do content for a couple years and you know what sells. He knew what he was getting on camera was gold. He’s done vlogs for his channel before. I wouldn’t be shocked if he was planning on doing one from this game. Again the Eagles fan – still a piece of s–t. There’s no denying that. But letting your girl take that much abuse and not doing anything about it? All for views. That doesn’t sit right with me either.”
He added: “A classic case of Kevin Kinkead’s two things can be true™ theory. The Eagles fan sucks and Packers content creator is a w—e for views. Now let’s get it back to the Eagles.
“P.S. That line about having his cheesehead thrown into a fire bin? Give me a break. Do people really think Eagles fans tailgate like a bunch of hobos during the Great Depression?”
Basara and his fiancée, Ally Keller, detailed the harrowing incident with NBC 10 in Philadelphia and said what had begun as “playful jabs” deteriorated into crude comments.
He claimed he took out his phone to record after the harassment began, which helped quell the situation.
“I was I guess trying to stay calm but I was pretty fuming at that point and just hopeful that another fan would tell this guy to stop. And everyone just kind of stood around and I guess allowed him to call me that name,” Keller told NBC 10.
She added: “We both paid for tickets. We should both be able to enjoy the game. It was kind of like a pride thing. Where it was like, no, I’m going to stand my ground. He could say these words to me and be mean to me but I’m not going to give him the satisfaction of changing my seat for him. And in hindsight, maybe I should’ve.”
