ESPN launches ‘blogosphere’ just after anyone with any clue stops saying ‘blogosphere’

July 24th, 2008 | Posted by PostmanE

The long-circulated rumors that ESPN would be launching a series of bloggers — and by bloggers, they mean former newspaper beat reporters with little experience blogging — are officially true today: ESPN has launched “Our Blogosphere,” which I’m pretty sure is just today’s headline, and not the name of the community, but man would it be funny if it actually was because no one who hates cringing really even uses that term anymore.

Anyway, welcome, ESPN. I anxiously await the reportage from your controlled storm of roboto-bloggers. Leachin’ ain’t easy, son.

Can somebody please tell me what these two were doing at Wrigley Field last night?

June 26th, 2008 | Posted by PostmanE

On the right: I have an opinion on sports that is both manly and ill-considered. I played sports. Ergo: I know sports.

On the left: I am an erudite little guy who mines self-flagellation for humor. I occasionally say smart things. My SportsCenter broadcasts always somehow take on the air of assassination coverage.

Together: We were born to host a hit syndicated morning radio show. Also: to throw the first pitch at Wrigley! Huh?

Listen, Cubs marketing people. I know. I feel your pain. You’ve got 81 home games this year, and Ernie Banks can’t throw out the first pitch at all of them. You improvise. You find celebrities. Etc. It can’t be easy.

But how much sense does it make to have ESPN talk-show personalities be the center of your promotional package? For the Cubs, it’s just sort of stupid. For ESPN, it seems like the kind of too-tight business relationship they’re often criticized for maintaining. In the broadest possible sense of the term, Mike and Mike are journalists. Singing the seventh inning stretch and screaming “let’s get some runs” is like the least journalisty thing you could do. Besides, like, being Jayson Blair. That might be worse.

Here comes the flood

June 9th, 2008 | Posted by PostmanE

It’s June. It’s baseball season. The Sox and Cubs, each the product of their own demented universes, are playing extremely good baseball. This means one thing: Lame national attention time!

Oh my God! Did you know Chicago “does weird” better than anyone in the country? I don’t know what that means, but you can bet it’s going to lead to a tremendously confusing Wojo column, in which he lists the reasons why Chicago is the most compelling sports city in the U.S. Seems like a flimsy premise, doesn’t it? It is!

Or, what’s this: An argument about a topic that pretty much everyone, even White Sox fans, would agree is not that much of an argument? Let’s have at it! (Oh, and it’s the Cubs. Come on.)

Finally, let’s roll some footage. How about John Kruk on how Ozzie’s rant magically energized the White Sox clubhouse, just in time for them to restore their 2005 awesomeness. It was the rant, of course, and not the fact that they’re hitting better and scoring more runs. It’s Ozzieball! Totally!

Everyone who had June 9 in the “When will ESPN realize both Chicago teams are good?” pool, please collect your winnings in human resources. Thank you.

Bill Simmons’ lost story actually really good

May 15th, 2008 | Posted by PostmanE

Since yesterday afternoon, everyone has been all a’twitter about Bill Simmons’ ESPN status, and his new blog, and what that means to the state of the industry, and oh man this so cool Bill Simmons is a blogger now! Wooooo! It’s just like what he used to do, except it wasn’t called a “blog!” And it used to be a lot harder to publish! There were like, HTML tags and stuff! Woooo! This is so exciting.

The only insightful thing to come out of this so far is that Simmons has a big enough brand — or perceives himself to have a big enough brand — that he can openly piss off the ESPN overlords and not really worry too much about it. That’s kind of cool.

OK, two insightful things: the story Simmons posted on his Blogspot is actually incredibly good:

Twenty minutes from tipoff at the Shelburne Center, spectators are already being turned away for the first round of the City Championships. The crowd is composed of three types of people: Fans, reporters, coaches and that’s it. The reporters are mostly white; you can pick them out by their pens and notepads. The coaches are also mostly white, clad in either jogging suits or three-piece suits. Everyone else is black. Everyone.

I learned how to pick out coaches at Southie’s home games. Southie’s entire gym might be 1/100th bigger than the circumference of the court. There are no stands, no room for cheerleaders (Southie doesn’t have them, anyway) and barely enough room between the baselines and walls for two team benches and a scorer’s table. Spectators stand against the walls and surround the court like sardines. Students arrive first for home games and find the best spots; coaches cram together by the door, wearing jogging suits or sweaters with their team’s emblem. After games they slide up to their target - on Southie, either Roberts, Lewis, or DePina - and pull the “shake-hands/wrap-the-arm-around-the-player/ask-about-life” move. Following a few minutes of stilted conversation, they head into Loughnane’s office for a few more minutes of posturing, stuff like “We think this would be a great situation for Clif,” or, “If Roger can get the 900, we’re all set.”

Yes, all of the paragraphs are that long, and yes, it’s pretty rough around the edges, but Simmons has, as he puts it in his intro, his “heart in the right place.” Give all 15,000 words a read, if your attention span isn’t utterly shredded by video games and blogs and Adderall and what was I talking about again?

Ooh! Tumblr!

Sports Hernia on Sportscenter

April 29th, 2008 | Posted by PostmanR

I already left the dudes over there a comment, but this was pretty neat. As neat as Snoop and Willie playing together? Yeah, probably.

Digger Phelps and a chasm of opinion

March 10th, 2008 | Posted by PostmanE

Digger Phelps. What can I say about this man’s outfit that hasn’t already been said about Afghanistan? Looks bombed out and depleted.

Ah, but I am not alone in my most diabolical of hate. Dave at Sporting News writes:

I’m laying around after the fights Saturday night doing some work and I got the Worldwide Leader on in the background and then suddenly I look up and it’s like, whoa, play that funky music white boy. I mean, doesn’t this show, whatever it is, College Basketball Tonight, whatever … doesn’t it have a producer on the set with enough juice to say, “Hey Digger, uh, Rudy from Fat Albert called and he wants his hat back.” Or “Digger, you like school in the summertime – no class.” Or just, “Digger man, take off the stupid hat or you’re fired.”

There I was, sleepily enjoying my alcoholic buzz on Saturday night, trying to watch some college basketball, and Digger’s out there dressed to impress. The funny thing about that is that Phelps was the only one dressed anywhere near as warmly as this; Rece and Hubert and Bilas were all just wearing their suit, and to be honest, they looked perfectly comfortable. Plus, it’s North Carolina in March. It can’t be that cold, can it?

For the record, Awful Announcing disagrees, as I think Chris Mottram will as well. But that’s why we love each other so much. Our differences only make us stronger.

Want your boys basketball game on ESPN? It’s going to cost you

January 30th, 2008 | Posted by PostmanR

Fascinating and rather eye-opening story in today’s Atlanta Journal-Consitution on how much it costs high schools to facilitate boys basketball games on ESPN2 and ESPNU. Long story short: factoring in getting the court ready, hosting another team etc. etc. some schools are plopping down damn near $13,000 to get their kids some face time on the WWL. (Sounds bad. But if you get enough people to show up for $10 a pop, you can almost break even.)

Anyways, I suggest reading the whole thing, namely to show how much the culture on this stuff has changed in such a short time (when LeBron was a senior ESPN showed two games; this year 15) and how it’s clear kids playing basketball get an insane amount of coverage.

Here’s the choice passage though:

David Boyd, the boys coach at Milton, was among the first Georgia coaches to court national exposure when he pitted his Berkmar teams, which would win two state titles, against national competition while luring shoe and apparel contracts.

“ESPN should pay,” Boyd said. “They [the network and Paragon] are benefiting. Money should be shared.”

“But ESPN has got the sledge-hammer,” said Dave Hunter, retired athletics director at Brookwood. “Like it or not, they’ve still got the thing everybody wants — exposure … If you could put your program on a national stage and not cost you more than $2,500, I’d do it.”

Norcross is not complaining.

“To pay for two hours of advertising on ESPN2, I don’t know any high school in Georgia that could write a check for that,” Barton said. “The exposure the kids and the school got was top-notch. We’ve had a lot of compliments … on how good they made the school look.”

Yessir, ESPN does hold the sledgehammer; they’re the only game in town if you want to get your kids some exposure. (I learned that from a book.) But they’re also not sharing much of any revenue with the schools they’re exposing. Until high schools figure this all out and it catches up to the college game somewhat, some schools might be paying a hefty price to get their kids on TV. (When they figure out how to make money, they’ll probably start televising middle school ball, I suppose.)

So yes: ESPN giveth, ESPN taketh away. Just another day at the office, folks.

Frank Caliendo’s act of contrition

November 20th, 2007 | Posted by PostmanR

So, the much hyped “Frank TV” starts this evening. And as he’s been doing for seemingly forever, Frank Caliendo continued his promotional tour this morning at ESPN’s own “Mike and Mike in the Morning.” By now, we are likely very sick of this dude. We were bombarded in and and out of each commercial break by his numerous impressions during the baseball playoffs on TBS. This has been chronicled by oodles of bloggers. The over-saturation seemed to turn our ilk mad.

I happened to catch this snippet of Mike and Mike on my morning commute and this video sadly cuts off the first, and perhaps most important part of the interview: Frank feels our pain. He apologized to baseball fans the world around for invading our TV screens at an alarming rate this baseball postseason. And, you know what? All is forgiven, Mr. Caliendo. After all, it’s not necessarily your fault TBS ran your promos so much. You’re just a guy that’s very good at what you do, got your own show for it and received an incredible amount of overexposure.

I’m still not going to watch your show, though. But hey, I can certainly sympathize, my friend.

We�re totally being ESPN anchors for Halloween next year

December 14th, 2006 | Posted by PostmanR

These dapper fellows scoff at the notion of traditional Halloween costumes. Ghost? Hell nah. Mummy? Yeah right. Steve Irwin? We ain�t stooping that low.

It�s all about ESPN�s on-air talents, baby. From left to right, we have Scott Van Pelt, Stuart Scott and Mike Tirico.

The Scott Van Pelt guy actually pulls it off pretty well.

As for Stu Scott, the suit and eyeglasses combo is spot on. Something else is a little off though. I can�t quite place my finger on it. Can someone help me out here?

(Oh, and if the dudes in the picture ever run across this post, it�s all in good fun guys. Please don�t hurt me. Please.)

Yeah, he’s JUST what newspapers need

November 30th, 2006 | Posted by PostmanE

Woody Paige cares. He cares about print journalism, people. Cares about newspapers. Cares about the Denver Post. That’s why he’s coming back to grace the mountainous people of Colorado with his enlightening prose. To save newspapers!

“I care passionately about newspapers, and I think I can be of help to the Denver Post. ESPN can survive with or without me. They’ve survived without Keith Olbermann. They can survive without me.”

OK, Woody. 1. - You are not Keith Olbermann. 2. - This entire quote insinuates that the Denver Post - nay, the newspaper industry at large - could not survive without you, which is wrong. Really wrong. Most would probably argue that the Denver Post - again, and newspapers in general - are better off without you, at least in terms of raising the level of sports discourse in the country and the Colorado region.

Remind me not to move to New York, “star” on a TV show across from Skip Bayless, and then try to honestly evaluate my own place in the world. Because apparently it’s impossible to be even semi-reasonable. Or maybe that’s just Woody’s signature touch at work.

But anyway, in case you haven’t heard, newspaper publishers are setting up a holiday - Paige Day is the unofficial moniker - the day Woody saved the crumbling print archetype! Hooray!