Monthly Archives: June 2008
What They’re Saying, June 6, 2008
Here is what the some of the sports media columnists are writing today…
Big Brown will attempt to win horse racing’s Triple Crown tomorrow at Belmont Park. The NY Times’ Richard Sandomir has a look at how the race is being covered.
So does Neil Best over at Newsday.
Some Belmont talk also from Michael Hiestand of USA Today.
And from Mel Bracht at the Oklahoman. And his local media notebook.
And George Thomas at the Akron Beacon Journal.
Bob Raissman at the NY Daily News has the story on how the people at the YES Network handle Yankee controversy…
Over at the NY Post Phil Mushnick writes that it is tough for those in the sports media to admit when they are wrong…
In Boston, Jessica Helsam at the Boston Herald reports that sports Radio WEEI looks prescient now that it has the rights to Boston Celtics basketball.
Tom Hoffarth at the LA Daily News writes that the NBA Finals should be a ratings bonanza.
More NBA Finals from Jim Carlisle at the Ventura County Star.
David Barron at the Houston Chronicle has h the tale of Bob Aspromonte.
Bob Wolfley at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has a look at NASCAR ratings …both locally and nationally.
Jay Posner at the San Diego Union Tribune has the story of Chris Berman’s role at the U.S. Open.
John Schiebe at the LA Times has a story on the HBO documentary of the 1960 US Open between Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer.
Ray Frager of the Baltimore Sun has a look at ABC/ESPN’s big weekend…
John Maffei at the North County Times has the story on the return to the airwaves of Rick Suttcliffe.
Judd Zulgad at the Minneapolis Star-Tribune has the story about a local TV hire.
Barry Jackson at the Miami Herald has the local ratings number of South Florida sports…
Jim Williams at the Examiner has news on the Washington DC sports radio front.
Scott Pierce of the Desert News in Salt Lake City has the story of DirectTV improving service locally. ..Good news for sports fans.
John Ryan at the San Jose Mercury News looks at the Obama fist bump.
Dave Darling at the Orlando Sentinel has a look at the weekend’s viewing line-up…
Doug Nye at The State has local South Carolina sports radio news…
Will Leitch, Proud Member of the Mainstream Media
Word came down this afternoon, directly from the source, that Will Leitch will be leaving his post as editor of Deadspin effective June 27th. He has accepted the position of contributing editor at New York Magazine.
Many thoughts entered my head when I first heard the news. The first was, what a hypocrite! Leitch has been such a critic of those in the mainstream press for most of his time at Deadspin and now he finds it convenient to join them? What a sell out!
Will he still be able to write “without access, favor, or discretion” now that he has access? It really made my blood boil that the man who has, on occasion, called the old media, well, old, is now part of the club. It just didn’t sit well with me…even though I realize the value of both old AND new media. It just seemed Will would never stray from the cutting edge. And it appears like he has.
Then I took a breath.
Leitch has done much work for the mainstream press for years. This is truly an opportunity for him, and no one should criticize him for that. Anyone who feels they have a better situation before them should take advantage of it.
I wish Will the best. I just wonder when he will crumble under the demands and constraints the mainstream media will place upon him. He created Deadspin and didn’t pursue a journalism career for that reason. It’s a little ironic that he appears to be singing a different tune. The reasons for which I will leave up for speculation.
ESPN to Enter the World of HD Radio
According to this article by Maury Brown at his Biz of Baseball site, ESPN is about to expand its radio programing options via the technology of HD Radio.
If you are unsure how the HD Radio technology works, you can find out more here.
On the surface the ESPN product looks promising…with the ability of radio stations to cherry pick from a bevy of ESPN content that can be customized to their local sports market. With more and more radio stations becoming HD compatible, ESPN may be an option for those looking to program multiple channels of content from one frequency.
I do question whether HD Radio will become a viable medium going forward. More programming options and better audio quality aside, HD Radio will still be held hostage to it’s lack of portability.
If I live in, say, Kansas City, and one of their stations decides to broadcast ESPN Radio on one of its digital channels, it is still limited by the physical footprint of its broadcast signal. Once you get away from the signal, you lose that customized programming. This is an issue with HD Radio in general. Wouldn’t it be great to be able to get that local programming anywhere we travel, similar to satellite radio?
I have not experienced HD Radio but I can see how it can potentially compete with satellite radio on a local level. I would love to hear from those of you who have HD Radio and feel it is worth (or not worth) taking a listen.
Costas on the Ball
I know we are all tired of the Costas NOW program and the assertions of Buzz Bissinger and others about the state of sports media. But please indulge me one more reference.
I happened to be listening to the radio early Saturday morning when I came upon Costas on the Radio, Bob Costas’ weekly radio venture. He began the show by once again bringing up some points that he’s stated both on his HBO program and in other publications. And the more I hear what he has to say the more I wholeheartedly agree.
He began by talking about how he was tuned into sports radio in St. Louis and the callers were viciously attacking Cardinals’ releiver Jason Isringhausen, to the point that the host said he was ashamed of the medium of sports talk radio. That’s when Costas said the following:
“It’s not about the Internet or new technology or new media, it’s about this tone, and this approach wherever it’s found. And it’s the tone of mindless, mean-spirited, ad homonym attacks and abuse, which more and more are part of general culture. Politics we’ll talk about another time. But in this case we’re talking about sports in particular. You almost get the feeling with each passing day that sports is more and more the province of louts, bullies, cretins and creeps…that you can’t be a reasonable person and still be a sports fan.”
Costas then proceeded to talk about how youngsters, who become entrenched in team rivalries, get caught up in perpetrating the negative tone…
“It’s this atmosphere…you find it on sports talk radio, you find it, regrettably, along with all the good stuff, you find it regrettably on the blogs. You find it more and more in print because it’s seeped into the mainstream media. This attitude not just of smarminess, but of flat-out abuse. Where what’s fair or what’s true or what a reasonable person ought to want to say, either publically or privately, is right out the window. And we just say anything we want… anyway we want… about anybody or anything.”
Costas finally talked about the Sports Illustrated article dealing with abusive fans at sporting events and the comments about such by Michigan State basketball coach Tom Izzo. He then finished his remarks…
“Is this really what we became sports fans for? Is this really what it has to be? Is it really just for louts, and creeps, and bullies and cretins? I hope not.”
I could not have said it better myself. And for those of you ready to jump down Costas’ throat, he did not say anything about infinging on people’s Freedom of Specch or that we should get rid of all blogs.
As I have said already, despite Bissinger’s irrational tone, his point about how this type of content is the future of sports journalism troubles me…and possibly Costas, greatly.
You can hear Costas’ yourself from his May 24th-25th radio broadcast here.
