I think the presence of drugs in bodybuilding has less to do with it than the types of bodies that the overuse of drugs has created. The pros today are too damn huge and not many people want to look like them. Pro bodybuilding in the 90s killed any mass appeal that bodybuilding attained from Arnold and Pumping Iron. The common joe who workouts wants to look more like the guys in Men's Fitness and Maximum Fitness than the huge pros in Flex and Musclemag International.
And the subject of posing suits that show off the glutes that comes up on Getbig from time-to-time, is also something that ESPN and other cable channels probably want to avoid. The only channel that is going to bring bodybuilding, unfortunately, is the gay cable channel.
Bodybuilding didn’t get any “mass appeal” from Arnold and
Pumping Iron. The same “EWWW!!! That’s gross!!!” comments you get from someone who see today’s bodybuilders you would get from someone in the 70s, if they saw pics of Arnold in his prime.
Heck, last year, when I bought the issue of IronMan, celebrating Arnold’s 60th birthday, the cashier took one look at the cover and gave her unsoliticed opinion, “That’s nasty!!!”. That cover is a (color) pic of Arnold Schwarzenegger, NOT Ronnie Coleman, NOT Jay Cutler, NOT Dexter Jackson.
And, you'd get the same reaction from showing photos of sub-200-lb bodybuilders like Shawn Ray (late 80s/early 90s) and Lee Labrada. Only one Mr. Olympia, of which I'm aware, has been used to endorse some fitness gizmo on an infomercial. That was Frank Zane, with the Torso Trak. They announced Zane as a 3-time Mr. Universe. When showing his picture, they highlight his Mr. Universe wins, while listing his 3 Mr. Olympia wins in much smaller letters.
Of course, when they show Zane actually using the Torso Trak, he is much smaller (since he's been retired for two decades). Zane, in his prime, would have been considered to big and too "gross".
Last Time I checked, ESPN used do a lot of coverage of bbing contests. Even had workout programs and American Muscle TV show, that was back a the height of The Great Physiques in the 90's...and they didn't have a problem with drugs back then.
They did show “American Muscle” and even some bodybuilding contests. However, 90 percent of the time, those were shown at 2 or 3 am. The contests were truncated and they were aired 4-6 months after they went down. As the internet became more prominent in the mid/late 90s, that formula simply didn't work very well.
