In a sport high on tedium, the post-practice NFL team press conference stands out. There, players and coaches don’t make news. They compete to see how long they can talk without saying anything. It’s a safe space, in other words – a marked exception in a game of unforgiving brutality.

And when Cam Newton took his place at the lectern inside the Carolina Panthers’ briefing room on Wednesday, there was little reason to believe this ritual obligation would even bruise him. But then a little more than halfway through his 11-minute-and-20-second appearance, the 28-year-old former MVP quarterback recognized an inquisitor in his audience named Jourdan Rodrigue, a 25-year-old beat writer for the Charlotte Observer.

Her question – about the zeal with which a third-year receiver called Devin Funchess ran his routes during a seven-catch, two-touchdown performance in the Panthers’ road victory against the New England Patriots last Sunday – reeked of technical insight. It suggested a reporter who, unlike an embarrassing number of her peers, doesn’t see the working press box, with its free Wi-Fi and hot food, as little more an ideal place to follow the progress of her fantasy football team.

Rodrigue’s question was maybe the best question, a nerdy question – the kind of icebreaker that can really perk up a player at the end of another withering day of meetings and drills. And, alas, perk up Newton did. “That’s funny,” he said, simpering, “to hear a female talk about routes like that. It’s funny.” He went on to address Rodrigue’s question, and the few that came after. But by then the answers hardly mattered.

Jourdan Rodrigue, a beat reporter with the Charlotte Observer. Photograph: Twitter

Far more interesting was the way Newton leaned into the words female and routes, as if to imply that one could not possibly understand the other. No sooner did the words fly out of his mouth than circulate on social media – if not the highest court of public opinion, then certainly the swiftest in the land. Its many eager jurists have a particular talent for reducing a nuanced discussion with the potential to affect real change into a back alley brawl. You know. Because that, at least, has entertainment value. Sizzle.

And here in this otherwise forgettable press conference, the highlight of which lasted a total of 21 seconds, was yet another occasion to pick a team. On one side you have Newton standing in for every passive-aggressive, know-it-all male authority who ever prowled a classroom or an office. On the other you have Rodrigue, avatar for the legion women sports reporters who’ve endured indignities like this and far worse for generations. To his credit, Panthers’ PR chief Steven Drummond convened a meeting between the two parties in hopes of a resolution. But, Rodrigue tweeted, that meeting, which she did not tape, “was worse. I chose not to share, because I have an actual job to do today and one he will not keep me from.”

Still, she did share an account with a colleague, Scott Fowler, an Observer sports columnist. “She asked the quarterback if he really didn’t think a female could understand routes,” Fowler wrote in a Wednesday piece. “Newton said she wasn’t really seeing specific routes when watching the game, she was just seeing if somebody was open. She argued that he didn’t know what she saw nor how hard she studied football, and that maybe the two of them needed to have a deeper conversation.” The kicker? Apparently, Rodrigue – in a scene that, in Fowler’s hands, unfolds like a classic Seinfeld breakup – asked Newton if he even knew her name. (Mind you, she’d been working the Panthers beat since October 2016.) When he said didn’t, she reintroduced herself (“Jourdan Rodrigue, Charlotte Observer,” she said) and walked away.

And with that we not only had a fight, but an ages-old struggle between one woman and the entire patriarchy – with Newton losing badly. What’s more, his lack of contrition in the early hours of this controversy primed him for condemnation from NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy (who hastened to note that Newton’s comments “do not reflect the thinking of the league”), another sponsor, Gatorade (which called his comments “objectionable and disrespectful to all women”), the Association for Women in Sports Media (AWSM), and the Pro Football Writers of America (PFWA). And it made Newton a ripe target for cheap shots. “As a female news reporter, I guess I’m lucky no one’s ever suggested I can’t cover crime because I haven’t, oh, you know, stolen a laptop,” tweeted ESPN’s Paula Lavigne, alluding to the 2008 incident that resulted in Newton’s suspension and eventual transfer from the University of Florida. (Only Panthers coach Ron Rivera called the quarterback’s non-sequitur “a mistake.”)

And yet … right when victory seemed assured, a triptych of Rodrigue’s archived tweets, the oldest dating back five years, was unveiled on Thursday. In one, she makes light of her father’s curious sense of humor. (“…he’s the best. Racist jokes the whole drive home.”) In another, she retweets a version of the N-word – which prompted a scornful digression from PFWA in the otherwise anodyne statement it distributed in support of Jourdan on Thursday. Jourdan, of course, had a screengrab apology posted to her Twitter feed by noon, or around the same time news the yogurt purveyor Dannon went public with its decision to abruptly end its relationship with Newton. The true cost of that divorce: a not insignificant chunk of an estimated $13m endorsement portfolio, which is about what the Panthers pay him to suit up on Sundays. And with that the fight turned again, with racism in the advantage. (To wit: the immediate calls, from Black Twitter, for a Dannon boycott.)

How is this story – a workplace matter that really should’ve been resolved privately – even a thing, you ask? Because conflict, in black and white, still makes the most compelling spectacle. Sports have promoted them so well over the years that, well, it was just a matter of time before the less entertaining areas of life got in the game. And so people like CNBC’s Jim Cramer further divided stocks and bonds into winners and losers. Politics are less about issues than optics, as much for the newsmakers as the networks vying to see how many pundits they can cram onto their pre- and post-game show desks. Outrage culture is all the rage, and so the news never rests. No story, however false the premise or equivalency, is too small. This story, suddenly the week’s biggest NFL headline, is proof.

Shortly after the Dannon announcement, Newton disseminated a video-taped apology. “After careful thought, I understand that my word choice was extremely degrading and disrespectful to women,” he said. “I realize that the joke is really on me. To the reporters, the journalists, the moms, the supermoms, to the daughters, the sisters and the women all around the world, I sincerely apologize and hope that you can find the kindness in your heart to forgive me.”

That should mark the end of this sad affair but, of course, it won’t. Likely, it follows Newton for the rest of his career, elevates Rodrigue to superstardom – because that’s the game. Likely, it moves the NFL team briefing room behind the white lines because all the world’s an arena now. The roles Newton and Rodrigue played will be reprised by new characters who, like them, will say a great many things that won’t make any real difference at all. Oh, well. That’s entertainment.