The Worldwide Leader...

Reading this thread kind of makes me think. . .

We're newspaper people. We're bitching about all this new-fangled crap ESPN is throwing out there. Bitching about the cross-promotion, about the self-promotion, about the over-commercialization. We want things the way they used to be. We're newspaper people.

And yet ESPN and FOX are raking in money.

Newspapers?

We want things the way they used to be.

 

newspapers are raking in the money too... it's just the people at the top want more, so they cut from the bottom

 

I'll rephrase: ESPN's financial situation keeps getting better. Newspaper's keeps getting worse. Much worse.

There are plenty of greedy robber barons in this business, but to focus on them is to ignore reality.

 

Well, since someone opened it up, I just want to say that Joe Buck is god-awful, and not for the shilling (which I'm sure even Jack Buck would have had to do for FOX). He comes across as smug, even for a broadcaster. Back in Week 1 or 2 of the NFL season, he kept making jokes about a kicker, calling him weak. I'm sure that kicker could take Country Day to the woodshed.

On a lighter note, I agree with giantjay about College GameDay being great.

 

Of course poker's not a sport and has no business on ESPN to begin with.

 

I always like flipping over to the Deuce to see what girly not-so-counter-programming it puts up against MNF. Usually it's ice-skating. But recently it showed a teen girl bowling tournament.

(Classic showed what it always shows -- boxing.)

 

Did anyone hear the early pregame with Dikta, Irvin and Mort? Hilarious.

Mort says something like, this is going to be a "great game." Dikta responds, "Says who?" in a way that made Mort sound like a total shill.

Mort then stammers and says something like, "Well, I think it's going to be a great game."

 

A few years ago, the finale from Joe Millionaire was the second-highest rated show of the year, ahead of the Oscars and behind only the Super Bowl. Does that make it great TV?

 

Actually it was the Teen Masters, which featured a girls championship match, a boys championship match and a winner-take-all match between the girl champion and boy champion. You must've just caught the girls match.

 

It was just a damn football game, and a good one at that. Whether they do a stupid interview or not, it's a good game.

 

Watch out for Versus. It's a sleeping giant.

 

Well, here's a column also criticizing ESPN in today's Newsday, by Neil Best, who happens to be a former Giants beat writer, and a solid one, at that. He now writes the TV Sports column for the paper:

http://www.newsday.com/sports/columnists/ny-spbest254947342oct25,0,7893219.column?coll=ny-sports-columnists

My favorite quote basically solidifies the belief that ESPN is definitely focusing on the 'E' :

Jed Drake, an ESPN senior VP, was nice enough to call and explain his side of all this.

"We feel that as long as we are judicious in making our booth selections, that there can be opportunities to enhance the telecast, whether that is about football, whether that is about entertainment, whether that is about culture," he said.

Later, he added, "The show is an entertainment show; there are elements that are not all X's and O's."