I see the helicopter crash that killed American Basketball hero Kobe Bryant yesterday is all over the UK media today, messages from Presidents and celebrities to radio DJ's and TV presenters, it's seemingly the headline story of the moment. It's surprising that a sports person should generate such a level of interest outside of the only country that plays his sport seriously (i.e. the USA, who have won 15 out of 19 Olympic golds going back to 1936)
Like most people in Europe I suspect that professional basketball isn't high in our collective consciousness, but, having lived in the USA it's a really big deal over there, a big money game. Even so, I'd only heard of Kobe (fleetingly) because of the high profile 2003 rape case against him that was dropped under suspicious circumstances (allegedly settled later in a civil court for $2.5 million) and the $4 million diamond ring that he bought for his wife after it. Sounds like he had some skeletons in his trophy cabinet that, luckily for him, his obvious talents on the court were able to deal with. No doubt we'll get the inside scoop on all the news programs tonight, nothing like a good celebrity accident story to shift those ad-bearing gigabits..
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