The Sports Media Thread
 

Inspired by Ksyrup, use this thread to discuss any and all aspects of sports reporting. Could be reporter/personality specific (hello, Bayless bashers), or it could be Deadspin-lite.

Yeah, just posted in the Random thread about good riddance to Doug Gottleib to CBS, as well as Thamel to SI and Brett McMurphy to ESPN. Also, Darren Rovell left NBC for ESPN recently.

ESPN has lost Erin Andrews to Fox and Michelle Beadle to NBC as well.

Lots of repositioning going on out there.

As I said in the other thread, I get a kick out of stuff like this:

ESPN Finally Covered The NHL, Thanks To The Olympics



I mean...that has to be intentional mischief. I can't imagine how else the Columbus Blue Jackets and their potential opponents could be forced into a standard soccer graphic.

Lady H_B and I have been watching a fair bit of the Olympics. We usually start watching around 9 pm, allowing us to skip over the commercials.

My wife has grown to loathe Andrea Kramer and her post-swimming interviews. In fact, I have taken to muting Andrea Kramer's questions and then unmuting for the answers to appease her.

Kramer was awesome interviewing Lochte after he finished 4th last night....

Didn't even realize there was another side on Skip Bayless. :)

And I definitely never choose to watch him but was just at the gym today and the guy next to me on the treadmills had on the Stephen A Smith/Bayless debate show. Good lord I have to admit I kept looking over like I was watching a car wreck on his tv. There can't be anyone who actually watches this show for information or entertainment can there?

How long before this just becomes the "ESPN sucks" thread? :)

SI

I wish Rovell would just disappear completely.

Maybe you just didn't realize his family has been kidnapped by a psychopath (maybe even Bayless or Smith) and for every hour he doesn't watch either that or sumo wrestler porn, one of his family members dies. But he's a navy seal and to prove his mental toughness, took the more difficult of the two as some sort of test.

SI

Close, I originally had this titled "ESPN Fail" as I said in the Random thread.

:D

And I realize that you have to debate differing viewpoints or the show would be pretty bland but these guys were the exact opposite extreme on every topic. I wonder if they keep notebooks just to keep their nonsense straight for future shows.

Kramer as a "sideline reporter" is light years better than anybody else. Not even close for my money. She just doesn't have "the look."

All sideline reporters are meaningless. They either ask questions that are so obvious they don't need an answer, or elicit non-answers from the athletes/coaches. I didn't see it, but I heard she asked Lochte whether that race went as well as he had hoped. Really?

Birds everywhere disagree.

On a serious note, we have to realize that sports is not what Andrea Kramer does.

It's not?

Hahaha, I was thinking of Andrea Mitchell.

Christ.

Honestly I don't know who either of them is. :)

Hilarious.

Sports Journalist Realignment Out Of Control, Driven By*Greed - Troy Nunes Is An Absolute Magician

I followed your original comment, then Wiki'd Kremer and figured it out. Easy to confuse them.

Not sure who else is affected.

Close enough. Any reason to embarrass Craig James.

Craig James needs your help paying off debt from his failed Senate campaign

I posted about this in the MLB thread, speculating that MLB must control all teams' Facebook accounts if they could all be hacked at the same time.

Yesterday's Flood Of Berserk Baseball Team Facebook Posts Were Made By A Rogue MLB Employee

Chris Berman got a long-term extension on ESPN's 33rd anniversary. I know we're all thrilled that this will also likely extend his run in Applebee's commercials, too.

Speaking of sports guys who used to be liked, I can't believe Rick Reilly exists for this kind of shit. I'd expect to read something this witty in a middle school newspaper.

Rick Reilly: Beware the Hilltoppers - ESPN

darren rovell‏@darrenrovell
Never thought I'd say this: I'm in a video game. I report your endorsement deals in #NBA2K13

Ugh.

I don't play video games, I don't watch ESPN during non-live sports hours, I don't often use twitter, and I don't watch CNBC, so I can honestly say I don't think I've ever been introduced to what I've been told are the horrors of Darren Rovell.

Social Media & Technology: 100 Twitter Rules To Live By — CNBC Tech Check with Darren Rovell - CNBC

This is why most people despise him.

He's no longer with NBC. He's back at ESPN. Or, as he tweeted earlier today, he's been with ESPN for 18.4% of its existence.

He does post about some interesting things, but damn the guy is so full of himself. He's more famous on twitter for being a twitter etiquette nazi than anything.

Ha! Yeah, that article is awesome. I'm sure it's been done already, but someone should fake-tweet Rovell asking for a RT on his birthday.

It is crappy writing, to be sure, but if Saban doesn't want to hear it, maybe he should actually schedule another decent non-conference game. Michigan, certainly a quality game. Can't say much about Western Kentucky, Florida Atlantic, or Western Carolina. There's not even a halfway decent team there

SI

Twitiquette.

How many teams take on decent teams for their OOC schedules? Michigan last year beat more teams that went to bowl games than anybody else ever had. And yet, their OOC schedule was Western Michigan, ND, Eastern Michigan, and SDSU. The closest game outside of ND was 21 points.

Eh, it was a stupid article both for the writing and because he took the bait. Saban wasn't yelling at the media, he was using the media to make a point to his players. That was directed at his team. I'm not sure what is worse - Reilly not realizing that, or Reilly knowing it but still writing that horrible article.

{scratches head}

At least 80% of that is solid advice, very very few items in it are purely ill conceived.

Damned if I see the problem here.

It's because he thought he was important enough that people would take his unsolicited advice. Usually, someone unlikeable doesn't get a very favorable reaction when they try to tell others how to conduct their own business.

{shrug} Seemed like a pretty rational column topic to me. Off hand I'd say he's the most recognizable name in sports business journalism, and he's just shy of a quarter million followers.

I wonder if the number of critics put off by that sort of advice (which is extremely common to see from social media gurus) have that many followers combined?

I don't think it matters to the issue of what advice a putz should be offering to the public. I follow the guy, but that doesn't mean I respect him or want his advice on anything.

Didn't Rovell also have some kind of creepy stalking obsession of some girl on Twitter?

Yep. I think it was during the pre-Super Bowl party week?

Then why are you following him? He's a putz, you don't want his advice, don't respect him yadda yadda yadda.

Then, umm, unfollow him maybe?

There's a lot of pretty good stuff in there for both novices & regular Twits alike, (although most of it is pretty basic info that professionals already know).

Ultimately {shrug} though. Just goes to show that the internet is a place where people will bitch no matter what anybody does.

I follow him for information. Pure and simple. You take the good with the bad. And actually, he's so clueless about how universally disliked he is that following him, on the occasions that he trips himself up, is extremely entertaining. I've never read his columns and wouldn't have known abou the twittiquette thing if it hadn't become a big thing on twitter.

You need to respect a guy in order to get use out of actual sports business tweets? It's when Rovell goes off on his tangents unrelated to his job that people get annoyed. Or when he uses only a sliver of "sports business" to say something like "LeBron James made $126,237 in the first half of tonight's game, which is more than the annual income of 79% of Americans".

SHOCKING how this one sided.

Yeah, the class warfare stuff he posts gets people a bit edgy. But even then, that usually spawns stuff completely entertaining, like when someone dies and you get someone posting as Rovell with a "Joe Smith's coffin cost $69,067 and would take someone working at minimum wage 9,525 hours to afford" type tweet. Good times.

Heard rumblings that Russillo is getting his name on the SVP Show soon, but now I can't find anything about it. Hrrm.

Rovell's a tool. I follow him for the train wreck.

A few examples:

Rules, Schmules. I tweet my dinner.

Playboy girls are ugly.

Duped. Sorry.

Bomani Jonesed

There was also an amazing thread that I can't get to load on EDSBS with fake Darren Rovell tweets throughout history.

But, yes, he has klout.

Except that, in today's landscape, basic good practices in social media ARE very much sports business.

I'm fine with him being labeled as an annoying git or whatever, he could very well be the second coming of Rick Reilly for all I know (I read probably two dozen Rovell pieces a year & those are usually cut & dried kind of things)

I just don't get that particular column being the source of major grief with the possible exception of people who either recognize how shitty their own feed is because of the advice they haven't followed (and don't like being reminded of it) or are too stupid to know when they're getting good advice.

The advice - whether it's 100% correct or whatever - is irrelevant. It all stems from who it's coming from and his self-importance for thinking he is the arbiter on how to use twitter and has license to tell people who don't respect him what they are doing wrong.

You realize that nearly everything in the column is pretty standard advice for any professional social media, right? About all he's done is tweak the verbiage for sports stuff in a few places & break bigger points down into smaller ones in order to get to one hundred.

There's a few points in there that are kinda contentious but there's not much in there that's exactly rocket science.

Problem is, the vast majority of the Twittersphere isn't as savvy as they could/should be, even basic stuff is probably helpful for those smart enough to follow good advice.

I don't think you understand. He could be quoting from the Book of Twitiquette. The reaction to it is because it's him, not whether what he is communicating is right or wrong.

I'm going to try to give up my dependence on ESPN for sports news. I am already watching NFL Network and MLB Network for those sports.

What should I do about the web? What other decent overall sports websites are there for daily sports updates? Any recommendations?

I just come here

CNNSI, or yahoosports. I stopped following ESPN a long time ago.

Twitter. Do some searches online and you can find the accounts of all your teams' beat writers. Then you have the major outlet guys who will also break news. For the most part, even the ESPN guys keep it pretty legit (the actual reporter types, not the Bayless/SAS crowd).

The only sports coverage I watch on an actual TV are live events. I'll catch highlights online if something meaningful happens or if there's something particular I want to see. There's just no need to be held hostage on your couch for 30 or 60 minutes while some producer decides what you should or shouldn't see.

It looks like old NFL Primetime has been nerfed even more.

First it was moved to 11pm a few years ago when NBC got the rights.

Then it was chopped up as part of the 11pm Sportscenter and you only got about half the games and not all of the NFL coverage was part of "The Blitz".

Now, there's not even Chris Berman. I like Tom Jackson but those two played off each other so well and were part of what made the show work

SI

TSN.ca/NHL

I know Berman called the 2nd MNF game this week so maybe he'll be back next week. I enjoy those two doing highlights so I hope that's the case.

I applaud ESPN for its John Clayton and ponytail "This is Sportscenter" commercial. Pretty neat to see ESPN acknowledge that Internet inside joke.

If you haven't seen it, YouTube it now and also look for the outtakes. It doesn't hurt that the "This is Sportscenter" spots are one of the most original and funniest things ESPN has done.

Rovell article:

Expensive dinner for Bears' rookies - Sports Business News, Analysis - Dollars Blog - ESPN Playbook - ESPN

Then of course we hear:

I'm pretty sure that Rovell also mis-tweeted that someone had died. I saw a mention of it the other day, but never saw the actual tweet.

EDIT: He had incorrectly assumed that Alex Karras had died.

http://deadspin.com/5950101/darren-r...-plays-it-cool

I don't think I ever realized just how bad Matt Millen sucks as an analyst until tonight, but I think I've figured out why it took me so long.

I thought he was Mike Golic (who I had been wondering when they moved him into college football coverage from Mike & Mike In the Morning)

I would also like to pile on and say Darren Rovell does suck

And good for Russillo

When SAS is "uncomfortable with where we just went" I'm just speechless.

That was bad.

why the fuck does he even care about his private life?

That's just so very... Rob Parker.

The guy used to write for the Detroit News for many years until he was finally fired a few years ago for making a very ill advised comment during a Rod Marinelli press conference. I think he asked Rod Marinelli whether he wished his dauhter had married a better defensive coordinator, because the defensive coordinator was his son-in-law.

He's the typical sports columnist who makes a living just trying to be a contrarian (e.g., the local sports teams are all horrible/finds the negative in everything) or say outrageous stuff.

yes

Why the hell is this a "top story" on espn.com???

Les Miles of LSU Tigers is most popular college football coach on Twitter -- report - ESPN

For fuck's sake, the headline is "Les Miles Popular on Twitter" ...

meh, I'm not gonna kill someone for not knowing what is a very obscure rule.

That being said, during a break when it was looking like it may end tied they should have asked what happens.

My wife and I were listening to this. It was amazing.

To Lathum's point, I didn't think this was that obscure of a rule--you have to play until there is a winner in OT, but you are exactly right that you need to make sure you are up on the basics of the OT rules before they have an effect on the broadcast.

I was at a work dinner and we were all talking abou tthe rules. Obviously we all knew there couldnt be a tie, but were all stumped as to if the rekick, cointoss, etc... or just treat it like the second quarter.

Was Donovan McNabb consulting on the broadcast?

The ref explained the rules at the OT coin toss.

yeah, I had no idea either. The CBS guys eventually explained it, but it was late in the quarter

albeit, terribly

I think there's a difference in being unsure of the rules as you watch, and being unsure of the rules as you commentate to the point where you are flabbergasted and seriously confused how a team could let the clock run out instead of taking a chance at winning the game.

It was a tad confusing at first but he clarified and eventually said we're playing OT like it is a game. We'll play 2 quarters, have a halftime then play 2 more quarters. Something to that effect.

Just read this article and was reminded of the discussion on here of why Rovell is hated so much.

Darren Rovell does not understand that he is hated

I really enjoyed this article:

Mike Shanahan, the Super Bowl and PTI


And a somewhat similar one that Deadspin ran a week ago:

How ESPN Pulled A Bullshit Colin Kaepernick Story Out Of Thin Air

It must be fun to be the one running the echo chamber.

SI

@darrenrovell Johnny Manziel is great for college football. The fan in me is happy we'll see on the field. The reporter in me is very proud of our work.

I miss this thread. Time to bring it back.

These Emails Confirm That ESPN's Darren Rovell Is A Sensitive Penis

I follow quite a few college football writers and I have to admit, it must suck to say anything and then have hordes of people just take shots at you. It's quite amusing when I see them shoot back at the fans. But what I find annoying is when they think their thought process is the only correct one because they are a professional writer and "fans" dont understand the game like they do.

I've had the fortune/unfourtune to meet more of these writers at games & scrimmages. Needless to say their arrogance does not go unnoticed. That includes sideline reporters like Alex Flanagan who is even more beautiful in person but you can tell she's one of those I'm hot and I know I am hot women.

Stephen A Smith heading to the Mad Dog Channel
 

Sirius Paying ESPN “Licensing Fee” for Stephen A. Smith’s Show on Mad Dog Radio | The Big Lead

Mrs. A was at a bookstore the other day and saw an NFL preview magazine that had the Saints as the cover story. She texted and asked if I wanted it, and I said no.

In 2014, when (1) multiple local reporters attend every open practice and send real-time tweets about what is happening, (2) message boards like this one (as well as team-specific boards) exist to provide opinions about sports, and (3) any story with a hint of newsworthyness will be overplayed on TV for 24 hours and then forgotten, the idea of getting sports news from a magazine seems very strange.

I am not saying that there is not a place for the kind of in-depth reporting and long-form pieces that work well in a magazine (that Jared Lorenzen piece from a couple of weeks ago is a great example). That kind of stuff is great, and the TV/Twitter culture cannot come close to creating it.

But in terms of asking the more basic question of "what is happening with my favorite team right now?," I do not see how anything can compete with what the internet is giving us, for better or worse.

Basically the only time I'll buy a magazine like that is if I'm about to get on a plane and don't have anything to read. Even then, I can load up my phone with items to read before going into airplane mode. So it's basically out of laziness or nostalgia, much more so then "getting news". Sometimes it's just nice to flip through a magazine, as anyone who has read that month's Skymall for the 4th time can attest.

I had the pleasure of being on Twitter as this was playing out yesterday. Such a dumb prick.

Darren Rovell Can't Tell A Two From A Five

Haha. You know what though - lost in all the Rovell bashing is KD's classy response where he doesn't go all crazy or say something stupid. Kudos to him.

Big news out of Bristol, as ESPN announces they won't be renewing Bill Simmons' contract. He'll be a FA after September.

Hmm. What does this do to Grantland? Does he own the property, or does ESPN?

I think ESPN does, Skipper commented that Grantland long ago moved from being a Bill Simmons site to something that can stand on his own. More interesting will be what happens to the contributors, do they follow the pied piper or do they stay on at Grantland.

ESPN does. I'm sure some people will follow him to wherever he lands once their own contracts are up, especially if he gets the backing to start up his own similar site. But he's getting a little older and I wonder if he'll have any interest in starting from scratch again when he can get paid to put in much less work.

Yeah, this is an interesting development. Makes me think of a tactic a lot of bigger companies use with extremely talented (yet somewhat uncontrollable) people. They use them to build something - then once it is built decide they don't want to pay them. It will be an interesting gamble as Grantland's success is largely on Bill's shoulders. I listen to a lot of podcasts and read some articles there, but if Bill leaves - my consumption will greatly decrease.

What's interesting is that both Bill (with his new podcast Bill Don't Lie) and Andy Greenwald/Chris Ryan (with their new podcast Watch the Thrones) have already broken free of the main Grantland podcast feeds to start independent ones. Makes me think that atleast a portion of Grantland (Andy, Chris, Sal, maybe Zach Lowe and maybe Bill Barnwell) will end up leaving and going with Bill.

The whole Simmons leaving ESPN has me digging through the archives and reading all of Hunter S. Thompson's Page 2 stuff.

Yeah, it would honestly not take much more than one or two of those guys leaving for the site to be unviable.