Spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of sports media…
Charles Barkley: Matt Yoder of Awful Announcing writes that Barkley says he never will work at ESPN. Until, of course, he does. From an interview with Dan Patrick.
On whether ESPN has ever offered him a job…
“They call me every year, but I would never go there. Number one they work their guys too hard, but also I think they manufacture stories. They manufacture controversies.”
On Dan Patrick joking that he could channel Skip Bayless…
“The next sound you’ll hear is me killing myself.”
Fox Sport 1: John Ourand of Sports Business Daily reports Fox Sports execs like the trends for the new network, although there’s still a long, long way to go.
Six months later, though, it’s clear that Fox Sports 1 isn’t ESPN — not by a long shot. It’s not even ESPN2 yet.
But its audience is bigger and better than its predecessor Speed, and Fox Sports executives say that they are encouraged by the viewership trends they’ve seen during the last month as it has started to produce live NASCAR races on the channel for the first time.
“Our first goal was to do better with Fox Sports 1 than we were doing with Speed,” said Bill Wanger, Fox Sports Media Group’s executive vice president of programming, research and content strategy. “We achieved that.”
Dodger TV woes: Tom Hoffarth of the Los Angeles Daily News writes about Dodgers’ fans frustrations with cable providers not carrying the new Dodgers TV network.
Roger Arrieta, a graphic designer from West Covina, launched one on his DodgersBeat.com blog, Facebook and Twitter accounts, punctuated by a design he created showing a fan with an L.A. cap covered in a blindfold under the heading: “Dodger Fans Held Hostage.”
“It’s like we’re all being held hostage by billion-dollar companies, and as fans, we know it is what it is, we’re going to see our bills go higher, but why can’t they just get it done?” said Arrieta, a 41-year-old who saw what he could accomplish with his “Save the Dodgers” social media movement several years ago, when former owner Frank McCourt went into bankruptcy.
Baseball on Fox: Steve Lepore of Awful Announcing looks at Fox’s baseball schedule for 2014. Which teams are on too much, and not enough?
Fox stipulated in their new deal that they could grab more games featuring the 15 teams who have RSNs owned by Fox than the ones they don’t. That proved true to form when the schedule got announced, as there are 88 games featuring teams that do play on Fox networks (which include YES, as they have a majority stake in the Yankees channel), and 44 on non-Fox RSNs like Comcast, ROOT and Time Warner Cable.
APSE contest: The complete list of the newspaper, digital and writing winners in the annual contest.
Six media groups won “Grand Slam” honors in the annual Associated Press Sports Editors’ writing and sections contest that ended Wednesday.
The Boston Globe and Washington Post, competing in the over-175,000 circulation division, earned top-10 recognition for their daily, Sunday and special sections to augment a top-10 website award previously announced in the Class A website division (over 2 million monthly unique visitors).
Grammar police: Michael Bradley, writing for the National Sports Journalism Center at Indiana, talks about the myriad of grammar woes in today’s media.
Before just about every class I teach at esteemed universities in the Philadelphia area, I provide a few reminders of grammatical rules for students, few (if any) of whom have any idea of what the regulations are. Even college seniors, many of whom graduated from top-flight high schools, have little idea what appositives and split infinitives are. And don’t even mention a gerund, lest the young folks’ eyes begin to spin wildly.
Jarrett Payton: Robert Feder reports Walter’s son now is a part of new afternoon team on sports talk radio in Chicago.
Jarrett Payton, former NFL running back and son of Bears legend Walter Payton, has been hired as afternoon co-host at Tribune Broadcasting sports/talk WGWG LP 87.7, station officials confirmed Monday.
Starting Wednesday, he’ll join Harry Teinowitz and Spike Manton from 3 to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday on The Game 87.7 FM.
“I think Jarrett is way more than sports royalty in this town,” said Todd Manley, vice president of creative content at The Game. “He’s the sort of creative, inventive mind that will help us define the future of this brand.”
On the subject of grammar, Ed, “myriad” is an adjective, not a noun. Cheers.
“myriad” means “a multitude of,” so “the myriad of” means “the a multitude of of.” It’s one of those words that drive editors nuts ’cause they are incorrect when they seem to be used correctly. I’m not being a smartass; I just thought it’d be good to point this out given that the post is about grammar. Correct use is “the myriad grammar woes.”
Jarrod is nothing more than a name..Walter was great , his son not.
I heard him on radio..it is awful. A sense of entitlement because of his dad. Without his dad, he is working at Foot Locker
Barkley is dead on the money concerning ESPN and “controversy”. They beat stories to absolute death plus there’s a reason that company is derisively known as the ‘Eastern Sports Programming Network…’
Regarding Fox’s baseball schedule, once again fans get screwed out of seeing a balance of all the teams in the leagues. And then MLB complains about ratings and such LOL. It doesn’t take a genius to understand that baseball fans west of the Allegheny Mountains could care less about the Yankees and Red Sox.
I can only speak for myself but whatever network I turn on, if either one of those clubs are playing the set goes off and I pull out a tape of a game say from 1983 or 1990 or 1993 with other clubs. I’d sooner watch that.
ESPN is all about the east coast. The Red Sox get plenty of air time as most of the east coast ! The Midwest has a right to complain they get the short end all the time . Go Hawks !!!!!!!!! Very little coverage , but I guess I shouldn’t say to much since I pretty watch the station anymore Thanks Ed !