Category Archives: ESPN

Why Eminem acted so bizarre: ‘He was just messing with everyone’

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Richard Deitsch of SI.com has the back story on Eminem’s bizarre appearance during halftime of Saturday’s Notre Dame-Michigan.

Bonnell said Eminem arrived at Michigan’s Big House with a small group in the second quarter, and hung out on an ESPN bus for 10 minutes before ESPN escorted him to a room next to the broadcast booth. Prior to the interview, Bonnell described Eminem as “legitimately nervous doing a live interview.” The rapper spoke with Herbstreit and Musburger before the interview started and told them “How do you guys do live TV week to week?”

Bonnell said what viewers did not immediately recognize was that Eminem took on the persona of his Berzerk character in the video. “He was just messing with everyone,” Bonnell said. “We had no idea he would do that, but if you see the music video, it’s him looking into the camera and doing a throwback to the ’80s. You clearly saw after the video was over, he became Marshall Mathers again. He was goofing around.”

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Whatever, by Monday morning, the above video had nearly 800,000 views. Mission accomplished.

 

 

NBA Countdown: Doug Collins could be in line to join panel: Wilbon to have reduced role

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Jason McIntyre of Big Lead has the latest on ESPN’s NBA studio show:

Michael Wilbon’s role on ESPN’s NBA Countdown will be diminished next season, and taking his spot on the set will most likely be former 76ers coach Doug Collins, multiple sources told The Big Lead.

The move is primarily so that Wilbon can return to focusing on the show that made him a star, Pardon the Interruption. In recent years, Wilbon has increasingly appeared on PTI via remote – from Chicago, Miami, Los Angeles, Arizona, etc – diluting some of the outstanding chemistry he’s built up with longtime friend Tony Kornheiser.

Wilbon’s frequent travel has also led to PTI replacing him with Bob Ryan or J.A. Adande, and the end result of both of those factors is that ratings for the show have sagged in the last two years, sources say.

 

CBS’ McManus on glut of NFL on TV: ‘I don’t think we’ve hit saturation level yet’

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My latest column for the National Sports Journalism Center site at Indiana University is on the endless feast that the networks will be serving NFL fans this season.

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When Fox Sports swooped in with the NFL in 1994, it dared to be revolutionary by launching a 60-minute pregame show. Previously, the versions aired by CBS and NBC were 30 minutes.

An hour? Such lunacy. Who would want to watch a pregame show almost as long as the first half of a game?

The answer: Everyone.

Less than 20 years later, an hour of an NFL pregame show almost counts as clearing your throat. This year, the various networks are pushing the notion of too much football on Sundays and beyond to the extreme.

Besides the regular Sunday pregame coverage on Fox Sports, CBS, NBC,  ESPN and the NFL Network, there’s two new major offerings this year: “That Other Pregame Show,” a four-hour extravaganza on CBS Sports Network and “Fox NFL Kickoff” on the new Fox Sports 1 network.

This is all in addition to the myriad of shows that provide constant talk about all-things-NFL during the week. And that’s not including the NFL’s 24/7 own network. There’s so much out there, Richard Deitsch of MMBQ needed 3,500 words for his preview of NFL studio shows.

Is there any chance of breaking the saturation point? Or does the concept of infinite not apply to TV and the NFL?

“It’s a logical question when you ask when is too much enough?” said CBS Sports Chairman Sean McManus. “The answer is, I don’t think we’ve reached the saturation level yet.”

ESPN’s Mike Tirico tried to put it in perspective.

“I would assume at this point if we added up all the hours of pregame programming with so many people doing daily shows, it might equal the hours of actual football played during the week in the NFL,” Tirico said.

Actually, there’s probably more. There’s a simple reason for this endless smorgasbord of NFL: The audience is there.

NBC’s Sunday Night Football was the highest-rated prime-time show on TV last year; ESPN’s “Monday Night Football” does the highest ratings on cable; and nothing comes close to the Super Bowl. It’s the football version of “Field of Dreams.” Show the NFL and they will watch.

“I don’t see people complaining that there’s too much NFL product on now,” said NBC Sunday Night producer Fred Gaudelli. “At some point, ratings will get involved and how much you can sell things for will be the determining factor. But with five 24-hour sports networks, I mean how can you not have room for an NFL show or two or three? So I think at some point, we hit the threshold. Where that is I have no idea.”

McManus is counting on viewers finding CBS Sports Network’s new pregame show. Initially, the network was thinking three hours.

“Our feeling was that if you could start at 10 (a.m. Eastern), you also could start it at 9 (a.m.),” McManus said.

Sure, what’s another hour or four? McManus said the network got the idea to do a regular-season show after airing special coverage on CBS Sports Network during last year’s Super Bowl.

“The Other Pregame Show,” which can be conveniently shortened to “TOPS,” will be hosted by Adam Schien and feature Amy Trask, the former Oakland Raiders CEO who will become the first woman NFL analyst on a pregame show. After talking to Trask a couple of times, she has a chance to become a breakout star in her new TV gig.

“The lesson we learned from the Super Bowl is that if you’re creative enough and have some good panelists, you can put on some compelling programming,” McManus said.

Then again, you probably could stick a football with an NFL logo on the screen and it still would do a decent rating. Tirico has his theory on the insatiable demand beyond the fantasy football and betting elements.

“I think football fits the lifestyle of the fan because if you have five or six hours a week to devote to it, which is the equivalent of two Major League Baseball games, those six hours can have you as a pseudo‑expert on your team,” Tirico said. “You watch them play for three hours, watch a couple hours of pregame, listen to some talk during the week, get online and read whatever you need to get your fantasy team ready.  So when people want to access the information, it’s available to them and in a variety of methods of delivery, with personalities and approaches on all those pregame shows. ”

It all starts Thursday with an appetizer of Baltimore-Denver to launch the season on NBC. Then the complete feast gets rolled out on Sunday morning for Week 1.

Dive in America. The networks can’t wait to serve you football, live and in HD.

Keith Olbermann wants ending like the good Scrooge

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Only Olbermann could come up with this thought. Also, allows me to use a picture of Scrooge in September.

From Reeves Wiedeman’s piece in the New Yorker:

“I’d like to change the ending,” he went on. “Not change it by papering it over, or by rewriting a Wikipedia page, but, literally, by having people react to me like I’m Scrooge on Christmas morning, rather than Scrooge kicking Tiny Tim down the stairs for no reason.”

After a week plus a day, Olbermann definitely is off to a good start. While I strongly disagreed with his opening night rant on sports reporting, he has done some outstanding stuff.

It all has been a great reminder of Olbermann’s unique talent and what we had been missing.

Also, I’m sure Olbermann is looking forward to ESPN completing its coverage of the U.S. Open so the show can resume its normal 11 p.m. slot.

 

 

Olbermann might make things uncomfortable for ESPN with NFL

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Oh, don’t be surprised if ESPN president John Skipper’s next lunch meeting with Roger Goodell and his NFL buddies includes a word or two about Keith Olbermann.

In the wake of the concussion settlement, Olbermann weighed in several pointed commentaries. He definitely didn’t hold back.

On Thursday, Olbermann recalled former Giants running back Doug Kotar and how the league turned its back on him.

Friday, Olbermann used a misguided commentary by CBSSports.com’s Pete Prisco to make a much broader point about the concussion issue.

NSJC columnists on ESPN-Frontline: ‘Roundhouse delivered to journalism’

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I had intended to do a commentary on the ESPN-Frontline fiasco for this week’s column for the National Sports Journalism Center site at Indiana University. However, my fellow NSJC columnists, Michael Bradley and Eric Deggans, weighed in with pieces that echo what I would have said.

Bradley writes:

There were many denials about the reported reasons ESPN backed out of its arrangement with PBS’ “Frontline” to investigate the NFL’s approach to concussions in football and subsequent impact on players, but the whole thing still stinks. By removing itself from the relationship, the Bristol-based sports conglomerate sparked considerable conjecture – and direct accusations – that its business arrangement with the NFL led to the exit.

If that’s the case, consider it another roundhouse delivered to journalism.

Later, Bradley writes:

That’s why it’s getting less and less possible to consider anything’s being aired about professional or collegiate sports as objective. If ESPN backed out of its relationship with “Frontline” because of NFL pressure, how then can anybody expect the network and its other platforms to provide an unvarnished look at the league? Just the simple mention of ESPN as a “business partner” in the NFL response to the NYT

story shows how the lines have been blurred between journalism and commerce. When any news outlet moves into a relationship with the people or entities it covers, objectivity suffers.

Deggans, meanwhile, was critical of ESPN president John Skipper and his comments about withdrawing from the documentary.

Skipper did deny that anyone at Disney or the NFL demanded the partnership end. But the idea that ESPN would blow up a 15-month collaboration with public television’s highly respected investigative show over two lines in an advertising promo — especially knowing that many in sports media would assume NFL pressure was the inspiration, regardless of whether that was true — seems, well, fishy.

ESPN is essentially saying the most traditional investigative unit on television was too sensational after 15 months of allegedly smooth working relationships. Yeah, right.

Deggans concludes:

Executives at Skipper’s level shouldn’t be involved with the journalism unless a serious ethical breach has occurred or somebody made a big mistake. That’s how truly independent journalism works.

And perhaps the saddest aspect of this entire display is that everyone involved with the issue has been around the media block long enough to know all of this.

My hope is that Lipsyte doesn’t write another column until he can answer some of the questions we’ve all posed.

Because sports fans who expect accountability from the Worldwide Leader deserve better.

Couldn’t have said it better.

Updated: Forbes writer refutes previous Forbes report about soaring profits for Houston Astros

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Update: Keith Olbermann did a tweet saying he plans to address the Forbes-Astros stories tonight on his show.

Already locked in to Worsts tonight RT @Sherman_Report To @KeithOlbermann and others who reported original Forbes story on Astros. Check out rebuttal on Forbes today.

Also Dan Alexander issued a rebuttal to Maury Brown’s rebuttal.

Here’s the entire story.

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On Monday, Dan Alexander, listed as a contributor to Forbes, created major headlines by proclaiming that the Houston Astros are “the most profitable team in baseball history.”

Alexander cited the Astros invisible payroll and a big new local TV deal.

The Astros are on pace to rake in an estimated $99 million in operating income (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) this season. That is nearly as much as the estimated operating income of the previous six World Series championship teams — combined.

Since it was Forbes, the assessment had to be right. Right? Despite strong denials by the Astros (what do you expect they’d say?), the story was reported as fact throughout the country. Keith Olbermann on his debut show even made Astros owner Jim Crane his first “Worst Person in The World of Sports.”

However, there is a problem. Maury Brown says it isn’t true.

And here’s the catch. Brown also is a contributor to Forbes.

Brown, founder of the Business of Sports Network and highly respected sports business writer, felt compelled to refute the original Forbes story. In an email to me this morning, he writes: “I wrote the editors and asked if there was a problem. (One of the editors) replied, ‘It’s my understanding contributors can take on other contributors. Let him run it.’ Speaks well of Forbes.”

So Brown did a post on Forbes that began this way:

Business is a difficult industry to cover, and more so with Major League Baseball. As a private industry, financial information is rarely—if ever—disclosed. So, it was with interest (and some shock) that I saw an article here on Forbes.com claiming the 2013 Houston Astros: Baseball’s Worst Team Is The Most Profitable In History.

There are few times that the need for an article refuting a Forbes colleague is in need of publishing, but this is one of those instances. Beyond statements from the Astros and club president Reid Ryan saying that the article was factually incorrect—something that could smack of protectionism—the fact is, the Astros are not the most profitable MLB club in history. As well, they are most assuredly not even the most profitable this year. In a case of ensuring that as the initial story weaves its way across the internet to other media, thus creating revisionist history, here are the reasons why the story is not only off-base, it has to be classified as grossly inaccurate.

Brown lays out his reasons, namely the Astros aren’t making nearly as much money off their TV rights deal, which essentially was the crux of the first Forbes piece.

Brown writes:

With start-up fees to get the regional sports network off the ground, the fledgling RSN is running at a loss. Not only do my sources in the broadcast industry say that cash calls for CSN Houston have already taken place, other reports speak to how difficult gaining carriage is, and will likely, continue to be. SNL Kagan, which Alexander quoted for the “most profitable, ever” story has said separately, “CSN Houston ‘has been a bust.’”

And there’s more.

Brown writes that he has been a critic of Crane, but not in this case.

I’m sure Brown’s rebuttal is getting considerable play today in Houston. But elsewhere in sports media, I doubt most people will delve heavily into the nuances of Brown’s report. They had their headlines on Monday, and have moved on.

However, at the very least, I hope Olbermann revisits the Astros story, given what Brown wrote. He should know. Olbermann also noted on his first show how much of what is reported about him isn’t true.

Major shift: Why several NFL beat writers left newspapers to join ESPN

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My latest column for the National Sports Journalism Center at Indiana University is on one of the bigger sports journalism stories of the summer: ESPN hiring away several NFL beat writers from newspapers for its major initiative to cover all 32 teams.

From the post:

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There is an element of the big-fish-little-pond tale as it relates to Rob Demovsky. He lives and works in Green Bay, a town that happens to have a football team named the Packers.

Green Bay may be the smallest market by far in the NFL, but when it comes to the Packers, breathing ranks second on the importance meter. For more than 15 years, most of those fans woke up every morning to breathlessly read Demovsky’s reports on the team in the Green Bay Press Gazette.

It would be hard to ask for a better situation as a beat writer. Yet in July, Demovsky left the newspaper to become the Packers reporter for ESPN, a really big pond that has a staff almost large enough to fill Lambeau Field.

“I had a great job at the Press Gazette,” Demovsky said. “I always said it would take something extraordinary to change. This qualifies as extraordinary.”

Demovsky is part of one of the biggest developments occurring in sports journalism this summer. Seizing on the infinite popularity of the NFL, ESPN is going to have a dedicated reporter for each of the 32 teams. Their work mainly will appear on the NFL Nation page of ESPN.com, and they also will be featured on ESPN’s other TV and radio platforms.

“The expansion of NFL Nation represents one of ESPN Digital’s most ambitious projects in our continuing effort to provide the ultimate personalized experience for fans,” said ESPN.com Editor-in-Chief Patrick Stiegman.

ESPN’s staffing targets have been established beat writers from the city’s top newspapers. Besides Demovsky, Jeff Legwold (Denver Post), Mike Wells (Indianapolis Star), Ben Goessling (St. Paul Pioneer-Press), Adam Teicher (Kansas City Star), Scott Brown (Pittsburgh Tribune-Review) and Phil Sheridan (Philadelphia Inquirer) are among the writers making the jump to ESPN.

Why? Legwold, who will cover the Denver Broncos for ESPN, explained his children (ages 10 and 12) influenced his decision on two key levels.

“I saw their reading habits,” Legwold said. “They read tons of books, but not actual books. They always are on their devices. It’s not like how we did it.”

And that brings up reason No. 2 for Legwold. He is worried about the future of newspapers, and with good reason. He was part of the staff when the Rocky Mountain News folded in 2009.

“That definitely affected me,” Legwold said. “I love newspapers. It’s been my whole adult life. If a newspaper that good closed, it really is a testament to what’s going on within the industry. I had to think of my family. When I was offered the ESPN job, it really was an easy decision.”

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And there’s more at NSJC.