There is only one thing to say to the mass media in terms of its involvement in sports — six-second delay this!

The amount of power that the media have gained over sports and the sports entertainment world is getting, quite frankly, ridiculous. With six-second delays, fines and punishments as effects of minuscule causes, the mass media have overstepped their boundary in determining what the sports fan has the right to see and what not to see.

Mass media haven’t always been able to hold athletics by the you-know-what, and, until lately, it was greatly appreciated by fans for everything that it did for the sport world.

The creation of ESPN has caused once-average sports fans to become rabid team followers, without having to leave the comfort of the recliner. Also, it gave people the chance to see some sports that had little, if any, broadcast before, such as pool, poker or even the fairly new Outdoor Games.

The expansion of sports coverage formed a type of athletic Garden of Eden for all sports fans to enjoy carefree. That is, until the fateful Nipplegate in last year’s Super Bowl.

For something that, unless you had TiVo, could not even be seen by the naked eye (no pun intended), the sport world is now forever damaged by it.

Now, because of that little slip (and also some f-bombs thrown in by Shaq in a postgame interview earlier this year), it’s impossible to find any sporting event without that pesky little six-second delay. That is, except for a little NASCAR race in Talladega, held Oct. 3.

Dale Earnhardt Jr., who won the race and took the lead in the Nextel Cup standings by 13 points, used an expletive in a post-race television interview.

For his use of the “bad” version of the word pooh, Earnhardt was fined $10,000 by NASCAR.

The additional punishment put on Earnhardt for swearing on live television is the biggest joke. After taking the lead in the Nextel Cup standing by 13 points, NASCAR fined him 25 points for the naughty, naughty s-word. That dropped him to second place, and he remains there as of now.

This would be similar to if the NFL were to give the Minnesota Vikings a loss after Randy Moss said the poop word on live television in a postgame celebration.

If NASCAR wants to fine Earnhardt $10,000 or $100,000 or even $1 million, that’s all right, and the higher the fine probably the better, because maybe it will teach him, or anyone else who does it, a lesson.

Fining him on what amounts to a possible loss of a championship is a joke on NASCAR’s part for trying to make sure no one was offended in Earnhardt’s “tirade” on live television.

Media also play a massive part in football’s replay system, and while replay does somewhat affect the professional game, this is more in reference to college football.

Though the Big 10 is the only conference currently “testing the water” with replay, the media directly affects the possible outcome of a play or even a game.

In the pros, the referee can use television cameras to determine a call or miscall, but they also have their own angles that an additional referee in the booth can send to the referee making the call on the field.

In a replay situation in a Big 10 game, the refs can only use angles filmed by the television station airing the game.

Although there are numerous cameras on the field, most likely the television station cares more about its own angles and how it looks on the television screen, than angles showing how the play unfolded and if a call needs to be overturned.

The mass media as a whole need to take a step back away from the sports atmosphere and let it get back to what it was pre-Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson.