Michael E. Miller of the Washington Post did a nice piece on Andrew Jennings, the 71-year-old English reporter who has been investigating Sepp Blatter and FIFA for years. Looks like Jennings is getting the last laugh.

Miller writes:

If you can’t tell already, Jennings is an advocate of slow, methodical journalism. For half a century, the 71-year-old investigative reporter has been digging into complex, time consuming stories about organized crime. In the 1980s, it was bad cops, the Thai heroin trade and the Italian mob. In the ’90s, he turned to sports, exposing corruption with the International Olympic Committee.

For the past 15 years, Jennings has focused on the Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), international soccer’s governing body. As other journalists were ball watching — reporting scorelines or writing player profiles — Jennings was digging into the dirty deals underpinning the world’s most popular game.

“Credit in this saga should go to the dogged obsession of a single reporter, Andrew Jennings,” the Guardian’s Simon Jenkins wrote last week, citing in particular Jennings’s BBC Panorama film called “The Beautiful Bung: Corruption and the World Cup.” 

And:

During a phone interview with The Washington Post Tuesday morning, he called FIFA President Sepp Blatter “a dead man walking.” Two hours later, Blatter announced he was stepping down, just days after being re-elected.

“I know that they are criminal scum, and I’ve known it for years,” he said. “And that is a thoughtful summation. That is not an insult. That is not throwing about wild words.”

“These scum have stolen the people’s sport. They’ve stolen it, the cynical thieving bastards,” he said. “So, yes, it’s nice to see the fear on their faces.”

The studio show just got a bit more interesting:

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ESPN announced today that NBA superstar Dwyane Wade will join ABC NBA Countdown for select games during the NBA Finals. Wade, who has played in the previous four NBA Finals on ABC, will contribute insights and analysis during pre-game and halftime shows for Games 2 and 3, and again for Games 6 and 7, if necessary.

Wade will join host Sage Steele and analysts Doug Collins and Jalen Rose on the set. NBA Countdown airs 30 minutes prior to each NBA Finals game and is on the road throughout the series for on-site shows. Wade will make his debut Sunday, June 7, prior to Game 2, at 7:30 p.m. ET on ABC.

Jeff Van Gundy’s calls on Chicago Bulls games definitely will be interesting next year.

During a teleconference Monday for the NBA Finals, Van Gundy went off on the Bulls again in the wake of how they handled the firing of his good friend, Tom Thibodeau.

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“I’ve got a couple comments. One, I’m pulling my name out of the Chicago Bulls running for head coach. Nobody has a sense of humor anymore. To me, I think this is that the statement they put out when they let Tom go proves once again that every organization needs a vice president of common sense. Because when you have a high powered public relations business put that out, and then you have multiple people have to co‑sign it to put it out, and it just absolutely reeked of a lack of class. It shows that you just need somebody to say, ‘Whoa.’ Let’s just acknowledge his greatness, Thibodeau’s greatness, and let’s just move on. But it didn’t happen that way.

“In some ways, in an odd way, I think it was good because to me, that statement revealed exactly who each person was. It reveals who Jerry Reinsdorf is. It reveals who Gar Forman is. And Tom Thibodeau’s statement reveals who he is. Everybody had to put their name finally on who they were, and they did. I think that’s great.”

Richard Deitsch did an interesting Q/A with NBA writers on the eve of the Cleveland-Golden State series. Among the many questions was this one: “Which players are the most media friendly and why?”

No Marshawn Lynchs in this series. The writers had high marks for both teams, including their superstars.

Howard Beck: Stephen Curry is just an incredibly gracious and grounded individual, and has been since he entered the league. Always patient with the media, and he truly aims to give a thoughtful answer to every question. (Which isn’t always easy, of course; we ask some pretty stupid questions at times.) Really, the Warriors might be one of the most media-friendly teams in the league. Andrew Bogut is a great, candid and often entertaining interview. Shaun Livingston, Andre Iguodala and David Lee are all smart veterans who are generous with their time and thoughts. It helps that the Warriors also have one of the best p.r. staffs in the league, headed by Raymond Ridder.

Frank Isola: The Warriors all seem like class guys but to me the most fascinating guy is LeBron, because he has the uncanny ability to make himself the story. It wasn’t enough that he hit the big shot against Chicago in Game 4. He had to tell everyone that DavidBlatt wanted him to inbound the ball but LeBron had to “scratch that.” When Matthew Dellavedova had the big Game 6, LeBron said his presence helps his teammates do “supernatural” things. He could write a “How To” book on dominating the podium interview.

Brian Maloney: We’re lucky in this series in that the two biggest stars are excellent with the media. LeBron and Curry were both finalists for our Professional Basketball Writers Association’s Magic Johnson Award (won by Pau Gasol) that goes to a player who best combines his excellence on the court with cooperation with the media. I’ve enjoyed spending multiple summers around both covering USA Basketball, and the way Stephen handled his explosion in popularity this season was really impressive.

The Blackhawks not only delivered huge ratings Saturday night, they also bring the promise of even bigger numbers for NBC for the Stanley Cup Final.

The Blackhawks’ victory in Game 7 posted a 3.27 overnight rating of major markets on NBC, the highest ever for a non-Stanley Cup Final game on the network; 1 national ratings point is worth the equivalent of more than 1 million homes. Complete national ratings will be available later, although it isn’t expected to fluctuate much from the overnight rating.

Once again, the Chicago market was huge for NBC, with a 26.6 rating on WMAQ-Ch. 5; 1 local ratings point is worth nearly 35,000 homes. It was the largest ever for Chicago for a non-Stanley Cup Final game and the third highest overall in the market.

By comparison, the game registered only a 3.9 rating in Los Angeles. That sigh of relief comes from NBC avoiding a Tampa Bay-Anaheim Final.

NBC didn’t hit the jackpot with a Chicago-New York Rangers Final, but it still is more than thrilled to have the Blackhawks playing into June. The network knows the robust Chicago market will drive its overall ratings for the Final.

Spanning the globe to give you the constant variety of sports media:

Ken Fang of Awful Announcing asks with Bill Simmons gone, who is the new “face” of ESPN? I like Scott Van Pelt.

Armed with a new contract and an upcoming solo host spot for a late night edition of SportsCenter, SVP is the odds-on favorite to be the new face of ESPN. Coming over to Bristol from Golf Channel in 2001, Van Pelt showed that he knew not just the links, but other sports as well. He grew from a SportsCenter anchor to an ESPN Radio co-host. Van Pelt remained on golf going to Augusta to host SportsCenter from The Masters and having a heavy presence on both the U.S. Open and the Open Championship.

When he becomes the host of the midnight ET SportsCenter, he’ll anchor the show all by himself which shows how much the bosses at ESPN value Van Pelt.

Jeff Pearlman has a terrific interview with Sports Illustrated photographer Ronald Modra. He recalls his worst subject, David Justice, who then was married to Halle Berry.

An hour and a half later, Justice and Halle came out. When he saw the lights we set up he started to pitch a fit. “What’s this? It’s like a major shoot!” By then I’d had enough. I was standing on a crate so I was almost as tall as he was. I said, “David, I told you this is the most important picture.” Then I turned to Halle and said, “The magazine offered to fly him out to your set the other week. Did he tell you that?” Halle gave Justice a pretty cold look and Justice gave me a really nasty look.

I showed Halle the little sketch I made of the picture I wanted and said, “Halle, you’re an actress and a model. I know you can do this. Make this work and I’ll be out of here in five minutes.”

The picture was well received at the magazine, a great shot of a couple in love. (They were divorced less than a year later).

Joe Posnanski discusses his career in the latest installment of “Still No Cheering in the Press Box” for the Povich Center.

Sports journalism is changing next week, and the week after that, and the week after again. It follows where technology and circulation go. I think that it’s changed so much that last few years that now we are going into the territory that none of us can necessarily foresee.

The writing – it’s going to be interesting to see. Being provocative, being interesting, asking hard questions, making it fun – that’s what sports journalism was about in the 1900’s and I think it’s what it’ll be about forever.

Chris Connelly is the new interim editor of Grantland.

“Bill Simmons had the vision to create ‘Grantland,’ and his leadership, ideas and inspiration made it singularly great,” Connelly said in a statement provided by ESPN. “I’m looking forward to helping the writers, editors and producers on this amazingly talented staff create more of the outstanding work for which they’ve rightly become known.”

Joe Christensen of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune reports on college athletes and Twitter.

Anne Delany at AWSM details a diversity program offered by APSE.

Michael Bradley for the National Sports Journalism Center offers his insights on teaching sports journalism.

Once again, the biggest Blackhawks fans outside of Chicago will be NBC Sports executives for Game 7 Saturday. It’s all about ratings.

The Blackhawks’ victory in Game 6 did a 16.6 local rating on NBCSN Thursday; 1 local ratings point is worth nearly 35,000 homes. That means an estimated 577,000 homes tuned into the game in Chicago, with a peak of 831,000 homes in the third period.

Meanwhile, the game was viewed by only 166,000 homes in Los Angeles, a city that isn’t nearly as obsessed with the Anaheim Ducks or hockey.

Just do the math, and it is easy to see why NBC wants the Blackhawks in the Stanley Cup Final, where the Chicago numbers can account for as much as 25-30 percent of the national rating.

NBC’s dream scenario for the Final would be Blackhawks-Rangers. Everything is there: two of the three biggest markets in the country and two Original 6 teams with major national appeal.

NBC would settle for either the Blackhawks or Rangers in the Final. As for a potential Anaheim-Tampa Bay Final, don’t even go there from NBC’s perspective.