Here’s Snoop Dogg on Around the Horn, the show of “competitive banter,” which assumes we’re all complete morons and must have really complicated stuff -- like sports -- explained to us via 30-second spurts of yelling. I thought maybe Snoop could create at least one segment’s worth of decent entertainment on an otherwise horrible program, but quickly realized it wasn’t to be when someone named Tony Reali muted him. Yes, a guy who goes by the moniker “stat boy” hit the mute button on Snoop Dogg. It only got worse when Woody Paige told Snoop to stick to his day job and leave the judging of athletes’ personal decisions to the pros:
I also find it funny that Reali says, “alright, now you’re just embarrassing yourself.” I’m sorry ... now? As if to suggest these hacks don’t embarrass themselves on a daily basis.

(H/T: Real Clear Sports)

Why not let an abashed hater of another team call your game? You know announcers have biases, but that does not mean they won't call the game accurately. It also means the game could be infinitely more entertaining, if Italian soccer coverage is any indication of the fun to be had when you let an unabashed homer like Tiziano Crudeli loose in the booth.
This runs counter to the thinking of Yahoo's Doc Saturday, who sees this statement by Chris Spielman as reason for him to be kept as far away from announcing the Michigan/OSU game as possible.

"[The Wolverines] stink, they're not very good. They don't play offense ... they can't run it consistently, they can't throw it consistently, they can't stop the run, they're not very good defending the pass, they're not very good covering kicks, they're not very good returning kicks...I love seeing them beaten down, man. It's great," Spielman said.

Read the rest of this entry »

Do we watch Monday Night Countdown just to find reasons to make fun of Emmitt Smith? Yes. Are we ever left without any material? No. This is because talking is very, very difficult, which is why we type for a living.

Last night, as Emmitt was brilliantly breaking down what the Bills must do on offense to win, he had this little flub while trying to say both the first and last name of Buffalo’s offensive coordinator. Luckily, Suzy Kolber did her homework and was there to help.

Emmitt: And so offensive coordinator Kirk ...

Kolber: Turk.

Emmitt: Turk Sheranan ...

Kolber: Turk Schoner.

Emmitt: Schonert ... must get him involved in the game.

Read the rest of this entry »

The biggest threat facing President-elect Obama isn’t going to be the economic crisis, or the war(s), or even the NCAA playoff system. No, it will be the internet, which is ruining the technology-free world we once knew. From a review of ESPN’s new webshow “Mayne Street,” the Daily Herald’s Ted Cox takes a moment to let the World Wide Web know it needs to get off his lawn:

In fact, it's just more proof of how the Internet is ruining the world, including the sports world, which many believed couldn't get any worse. ...

"Tell 10,000 co-workers to click on it so they order a second season," [Kenny Mayne] wrote in the chat.

And clicks, my friends, are what it's all about in the current media environment. Page views - from different computers, not the same one over and over - are where it's at. So blogs make reference to one another and exchange links to get the click-go-round going. Altogether, it produces a narcissistic, self-referential attitude.

Read the rest of this entry »

This idea has been tried before: the interactive live chat scrolling on television. MTV tried it back in the late '90s with mixed results; they edited comments for profanity, but during a broadcast of the video for Shabba Ranks' "Mr Loverman," the exchange turned on the video quickly. It went something like this:

USER1: Mr. Loverman. SHABBA! Ths song sux.

USER2: He doesn't do anything! Mr. Lazyman

USER3: More like Mr. UGLYMAN!

USER1: LOL YES! MR. UGLYMAN!

USER2: SHABBA!!!

MTV then discontinued this feature shortly afterward, as they should have. ESPN's "Interactive Tuesday" will eventually meet the same fate, but for different reasons. The comments from users stream across the top of the screen, and the quality of the comments comes straight from the ESPN.com school of commentary: bland, meaningless, and at their worst mind-blowingly dumb. Example:

Yes, because the only thing that would make a Tuesday night MAC showdown better for me as a sports fan is giving ChargerBoi3 the chance to belch out an inane opinion layered distractingly over the action. Isn't letting Emmitt Smith talk on television bad enough for ESPN? At least Emmitt Smith provides an element of comedy; Interactive Tuesday's bland patter just makes me sad. At the very least, let the crowd turn on the announcers, since as unplanned as it was, I still giggle when I think of Mr. Uglyman. The opportunity to let something interesting happen on air, though, doesn't exactly scream "part of ESPN's Mission statement."