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Another primetime dud: Is something more taking place with blowouts than just coincidence?

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I came home last night looking forward to watching Monday Night Football on ESPN. However, by the time I settled into my couch, the Eagles already were up 24-7, which quickly turned into 31-7 after a brutal Cam Newton pick 6.

That was it for me. I tuned into Jon Stewart’s rather strange interview with a giggling Bruce Springsteen. Let the man talk, Jon.

As a result, I missed Jon Gruden and Mike Tirico actually making a protein smoothie as they attempted to fill during garbage time.

All these primetime blowouts really are beginning to pile up. As I wrote yesterday, NBC’s Sunday Night Football now has had eight straight games with an average victory margin of 23.5 points.

For the most part, the Thursday night games have been terribly one-sided, with an average victory margin of more than 20 points. And the Sunday doubleheader games have featured several games that turned into routs.

It got me to thinking if this is more than just a bad run for the NFL? Is there something else at work beyond coincidence?

At one level, it suggests that the gap between the haves and the have-nots has gotten much wider, as evidenced by Green Bay’s 55-14 shellacking over Chicago Sunday and Philly’s trouncing of Carolina last night. Both Chicago and Carolina have been major disappointments this year, as they are getting lapped by superior teams.

As a result, once attractive-looking match-ups on paper have become what-else-is-on games for viewers.

But what about one-sided games with top teams, such as New England’s whipping of Denver? I’m hardly a football expert, but I wonder if the sophisticated offenses we’re seeing these days produce more blowouts. One team gets on an unstoppable run, like New England, and suddenly Peyton Manning is down 28-7. It certainly seems like these games get out of hand fairly quickly.

Anyway, the NFL and many football experts will say the blowouts are a coincidence. And maybe they are. But let’s see what they say if the bad run continues.

 

 

 

 

Gluttons for punishment: Nearly 600,000 homes in Chicago still tuned in at end of Bears disaster

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There were two ratings takeaways from the Bears-Green Bay game Sunday.

— The fourth quarter rating was nearly half of what it would have been if the game had been relatively close, as many viewers didn’t stick to the bitter end.

— Yet having said that, nearly 600,000 areas homes still were tuned in during the game’s final quarter-hour at 10:45 p.m., suggesting there are no limitations to how much punishment some Bears fans will endure.

All in all, the Bears’ 55-14 disaster made for a miserable night for NBC and WMAQ-Ch. 5. The game did a 25.0 on Ch. 5; 1 ratings point is worth 35,500 homes. While that still is a huge number, the rating would have been in the 30s with an even remotely competitive game. Bears fans were ready for the game, as the rating peaked at 31.5 at 7:45 p.m. Then the decline began.

8 p.m.: 30.0.

9 p.m. (Just before halftime): 27.9

10 p.m.: 21.4

10:45 p.m.: 16.7

Nationally, NBC did an 11.1 overnight rating of major markets, a direct result of being dealt the largest halftime deficit ever for a NFL primetime game at 42-0. The rating was off NBC’s average of 13.4 going into the game. The Bears continued a now remarkable streak of blowouts for NBC on “Sunday Night Football.” It was the eighth straight game decided by 18 points or more. The average victory margin in its last eight games now is 23.5 points.

 

Packers 55, Bears 14: Don’t say you weren’t warned America, NBC SNF

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You know it is bad when Al Michaels and Cris Collinsworth are thanking the one viewer who stuck with last night’s disaster, and hoping the person has a Nielsen box.

Green Bay’s 55-14 victory over the Bears had the feel of an August preseason game. The Packers pulled Aaron Rodgers in the third quarter, much to the disappointment of his fantasy owners who were hoping for 10 TDs.

Too bad for the Bears, the game counted. We’re at Defcon 1 in Chicago in terms of Bears fans waiting for the team to drop the ax on Marc Trestman. The Chicago Tribune’s sports front and Redeye edition summed up everyone’s frustration.

The blowout continued a perplexing streak for NBC’s Sunday night crew. This is getting ridiculous.

Take a look at this run on Sunday night:

Sept. 21: Pittsburgh 37, Carolina 19.

Sept. 28: Dallas 38, New Orleans 17.

Oct. 5: New England 43, Cincinnati 17.

Oct. 12: Philadelphia 27, Giants 0.

Oct. 19: Denver 42, San Francisco 17.

Oct. 26:  New Orleans 44, Green Bay 23.

Nov. 2: Pittsburgh 43, Baltimore 23.

Nov. 9: Green Bay 55, Bears 14.

The average margin of victory in those eight games: 23.5 points.

Next week, NBC has New England at Indianapolis on Sunday night. Tom Brady vs. Andrew Luck should be a great game.

Then again, given the way their season is going, Michaels and Collinsworth should have plenty of blowout material on hand.

 

 

 

DVR alert: ESPN Outside The Lines Special examining domestic violence in sports

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At this point, the Ray Rice story seems like it happened a few years ago. Things have quieted down quite a bit.

So kudos to ESPN and “Outside The Lines” for keeping the spotlight on such an important issue.

The rundown from ESPN:

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ESPN will air a one-hour, primetime Outside The Lines Special – “Domestic Violence and Sports: Out of the Shadows” hosted by veteran journalist Bob Ley on Tuesday, Nov. 11 at 7 p.m. ET on ESPN2.

Continuing the network’s extensive reporting on the subject of domestic violence, the OTL special and stories during the week include features from reporters Kelly Naqi, John Barr, Steve Delsohn and Mark Fainaru-Wada.

“Outside the Lines wanted to produce this special so our audience could better understand the impact domestic violence has on the victims, the perpetrators, the teams and the leagues,” said ESPN senior coordinating producer Dwayne Bray. “We hope the stories and discussion we present in this special enhance our audience’s understanding of the issue.”

“We wanted to examine more closely some of the issues related to the recent rash of domestic violence stories coming out of the sports world,” said Carolyn Hong, a coordinating producer for ESPN’s enterprise unit. “Our reporting will hopefully generate more discussion on an issue that transcends sports.”

Panelists, for Tuesday night’s show (subject to change) include: espnW’s Jane McManus; NFL executive Vice President of football operations Troy Vincent; and Shawnda Wilkinson, ex-wife of “Big Daddy” Wilkinson.

Former Abuser – Ex-Denver Broncos wide receiver Vance Johnson discusses his history of abusing women. Kelly Naqi reports. (Preview clip: http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=11822093)

Turning it Around – Groups including Men of Code speak to young athletes in an effort to inspire the next generation. Steve Delsohn reports. (Preview clip: http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=11822136)

NFL’s Domestic Violence History — A look at how the league handled the domestic-violence issue over the past two decades. Mark Fainaru-Wada reports.

Prior to NBC, Costas once was TV voice of Bulls; vintage videos of young Bob

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My latest Chicago Tribune column is on Bob Costas reflecting on all of his Chicago ties on his 40th anniversary in broadcasting.

You also can access the column via my Twitter feed at @Sherman_Report.

Thanks to The Museum of Classic Chicago Television for the picture of young Bob.

Also, check out these vintage clips of Costas via The Museum of Classic Chicago Television.

The Bulls promo featuring Costas in the yellow blazer.

An open to a Bulls game in Seattle. Note the camera angle is so far away, Costas seems as if he is in Portland.

From the column:

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Bob Costas has covered so many Olympics, Super Bowls, World Series, U.S. Opens and other big events that they blur together. Yet there’s one entry on his resume that might surprise even hard-core basketball fans.

Costas was the play-by-play voice for the Bulls on WGN-9, calling 19 road games during the 1979-80 season.

Archive footage shows a very young Costas doing a Bulls promo wearing a rather hideous yellow WGN blazer (video).

“WGN had us give it back after the season, as if you’d want to wear that blazer in some swanky restaurant,” Costas said.

It was Rod Thorn, then the Bulls’ general manager, who brought the budding sportscaster to Chicago. They initially connected when Thorn was the coach and Costas did play-by-play for the ABA Spirits of St. Louis during the 1975-76 season.

The Bulls, terrible in the pre-Michael Jordan years, went 2-17 in the games Costas called. He was spared from watching more bad basketball because home games weren’t shown locally then and WGN did not televise all road games.

He, however, never will forget his WGN partner, Johnny “Red” Kerr.

“I’m 27 looking like I’m 14, and he treated me like a million bucks,” Costas said. “He was a great player, but he always played down his own abilities. Once I asked how he would defend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. He said, ‘I’d get as close as I could, breathe on him and try to fog up his goggles.'”

 

New ESPN edict: Don’t disturb the Bill Simmons

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The latest Bill Simmons flap almost seemed like a fight between two brothers.

After Mike Golic’s comments about him, Simmons went on Twitter and basically said, “MOM, did you hear what Mikey said about me?”

If you haven’t heard, here’s Awful Announcing’s recap of Simmons’ Twitter explosion against Golic and ESPN.

And here is the follow-up this morning by Chris Chase of USA Today of how the latest feud has been resolved.

Richard Deitsch of SI.com weighed in with some interpretation from ESPN book author James Andrew Miller.

I am fairly certain that the ESPN honchos have issued an edict prohibiting any of their personalities from talking about Simmons. They don’t want to risk the man with tissue-paper thick skin going off on Twitter again.

ESPN has a major problem on its hands in trying to control Simmons, who clearly is fuming about the way the network is treating him. However, here is some advice to Simmons: Next time you get mad, stay away from Twitter. You aren’t helping your cause with these rants.

I still say Bill Simmons needs ESPN more than the network needs him.

 

 

 

Robert Lipsyte takes deep dive in examining journalism at ESPN; ‘Making it up as it goes along’

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Robert Lipsyte notes that his 18-month assignment as ESPN’s ombudsman is coming to an end. He definitely plans to make some noise before he leaves.

Lipsyte’s latest piece is a lengthy analysis that carries the headline “Probing the gray areas of ESPN’s journalism.” He writes:

In the early days of my ombudsmanship, a senior ESPN executive suggested I stay away from “conflict of interest” as a topic in my upcoming columns; it was an irrelevant issue, he said, nothing more than a way for lazy critics to attack ESPN. 

Just the other day, a different senior ESPN executive told me that the “conflict-of-interest” topic was just too complex to explicate. He said, “There are no black-and-white areas at ESPN. Everything is gray.” 

These were two smart and important executives, a generation apart in age and service, reflecting what I found to be the prevailing mindset of a company that has been enormously successful at making it up as it goes along — shuffling personnel, sports, shows with a gambler’s pragmatism as it tries to balance the demands of the leagues that are its principal business partners with the journalistic obligations to cover them honestly. 

I was struck by this passage:

Sandy Padwe, a former editor at The New York Times and Sports Illustrated who has taught at the Columbia School of Journalism since 1989, takes a hard-eyed view (he was also a consultant at ESPN for 19 years). 

“Journalism is important to ESPN when it needs it,” he said, “meaning when critics look at the whole product and wonder why it seems 99 percent of the daily report is devoted to noise and the current name of the moment. Then the network points to ‘Outside the Lines’ or some of the recent reporting on Roger Goodell. 

“ESPN will mature when it starts bringing in people from the newest production assistant to the glitziest commentators who know how to diagram a courthouse as well as diagram the latest offense or defense. You can’t get by anymore with a handful of people who know journalism and literally thousands who have no idea about it. What does it say when Bill Simmons doesn’t even understand that he needs proof before calling Roger Goodell a liar?” 

On any given moment of any day somewhere in the vast ESPN TV, radio, digital empire, any of the above opinions is true. The acceptance of conflict of interest as an acceptable climate, of gray as a moral position on most matters, makes it impossible to state what ESPN as a company actually stands for beyond entertainment and the bottom line, which is what major sports stands for — making the fans happy and putting points on the scoreboard. 

There’s plenty to consume on the various sides of the issue. Lipsyte quotes ESPN staffers who maintain the network doesn’t have a conflict of interest in reporting news.

Yet Lipsyte’s conclusion clearly shows he is skeptical.

As for ESPN, it needs to be clearer about which rules of journalism it is going to enforce and why they need to be enforced equally in print and on pod, on Grantland and “SportsCenter” and “GameDay” and perhaps even on “partner projects.” ESPN needs to be more transparent about the role of journalism in its business model, the purpose behind it and how committed it is to supporting it. 

There should be nothing gray about that.

Networks will be active in quickening the pace in baseball; New commish expected to be ‘open to new ideas’

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Eric Fisher of Sports Business Daily reports on the sports TV honchos talking about the business yesterday at the ‘14 NeuLion Sports Media & Technology Conference in New York.

Some interesting observations. However, this one caught my eye:

 Levy, Freer and Lazarus, each of whom work with MLB, all lauded incoming Commissioner Rob Manfred and said they expect him to be open-minded in working with the sport’s TV partners, particularly with regard to pace-of-play issues. “I want to give Bud the due he deserves,” Levy said. “He’s done a great job leading the sport for a long time, and he’s given Rob a tremendous foundation from which to build. But I think Rob will be more apt to figure out ways to work with TV partners, giving us more access to players. He’ll be open to a lot of ideas. I think he’ll be open to what Randy and I need to do with our businesses.”

Indeed, while the network sports honchos have been reluctant to say it publicly, they have to be pressuring MLB behind the scenes about the dreadful pace of these games. The networks have been showing the equivalent of 3 1/2-hour movies that should be 2 1/2 hours. The long games don’t make for appealing TV, and that’s reflected in the declining ratings.

With the networks investing billions of dollars in TV rights, you can be sure Manfred will be “open to a lot of ideas.” Expect a few of them to be implemented next year.

 

 

 

Bob Ryan’s life as a ‘fan’ in the press box

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My latest column for the National Sports Journalism Center is on Bob Ryan, who wrote about his career in a new autobiography.

From the column:

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Bob Ryan interrupted our interview for a moment.

“What did Sports Illustrated say about me again?” Ryan said.

Ryan shuffled through the pages of the magazine. Once a print guy, always a print guy. He finally found the page where there was a short review of his autobiography, “Scribe: My Life in Sports.”

The blurb offered praise, saying the book was an entertaining read. Then Ryan read the kicker:

“’…Even though (Ryan) blurred the line between journalist and fan,’” Ryan said.

Ryan paused for a moment about a rather insulting characterization before firing back in his distinctive rapid-fire tone.

“I plead guilty,” said Ryan, his voice rising. “I am a fan. I’ve always been a fan.”

Wait a minute? The great Boston Globe “scribe” would seem to be violating the grand sportswriter’s credo. Jerome Holtzman’s famous book, “No Cheering in the Press Box,” is named that way for a reason.

Since forever, sportswriters were taught to be objective chroniclers of the games other people play. While the crowd below erupts at airliner-decibels, the press box is supposed to be as quiet as the congregation in silent prayer.

Ryan’s long time Globe colleague, Dan Shaughnessy, addressed the issue earlier this year  when he told readers:

“I don’t care if they win. I don’t care if they lose. I love sports. I love football. I love the story. The story can be great, win or lose. But I am not emotional about the outcome.”

Yet here is Ryan in his book declaring openly that he is a fan of the Boston Celtics, a team he covered and the foundation of his journalistic legacy. He is a long-time season-ticket holder to the Boston Red Sox and wants them to win as well.

So what gives?

“I don’t see any problem,” Ryan said. “You can have an allegiance in your heart for the team you’re covering. When the game is over, you put on your journalist’s hat and write the story. I never saw that contradiction. I always wrote for the fan and try to emphasize the fan’s point of view in my stories.”

Ryan also says he has a practical reason for his rooting interests. “It makes for better stories when the home team wins,” he said.

To be clear, Ryan never sat on press row wearing a No. 33 Larry Bird jersey. He didn’t thrust his arms up in the air like that Boston policeman when David Ortiz hit his famous homer against Detroit last year.

Ryan never has pulled any punches on the teams he has covered. Let the record show, he has come down hard early and often in his career.

“I don’t think anyone has ever complained that I ever was too soft on the Celtics,” Ryan said. “Boston College (where Ryan attended school) thinks I’m Mr. Negative. ‘How dare I question things that happened there through the years?’ My bosses never complained about my reporting. All I know is that whatever I did through the years seemed to work pretty well.”

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Also if you are in the mood for more Ryan, he talks about his career at length in the latest edition of “Still No Cheering in the Press Box” from the Shirley Povich Center for Sports Journalism at Maryland.