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The 4-Letter!!!
Work was canceled due to the snow so I got to watch the morning Sportcenter hoping to hear about the Spurs big win last night...
The whole segment was only the last shot of the game and then the lakers crying about how ty they are playing... Oh plus a stupid ten second graph of Tony's numbers that said French cooking. LMAO.
I know we're used to it by now but we're effin' 41 and 8!!!! Where's the love???!!! If it was the Lakers winning it would be about how awesome they are beating the best team, or if it was the Heat you would have to change channels!
ESPN hates when the Spurs win in all honesty... oh well.
Big Win last night boys!!!
The 4-Letter!!!
Yeah they would have a hour special about Kobe and how "awesome" he is lol. Did u hear how sad the commentators sounded lastnight after th put back? Lol. espn lol.
Yeah, hard not to notice the short shrift BSPN gave to the Spurs win last night.
Yeah em... its never gonna change unless we can pull off a trade for LeBron and Blake Griffin.... Then we'll get some recognition!!!!!
Espn is re ed.
I expected Lebrons 50pt night to take priority over the best team in the west beating the 2nd best with a last .2 sec tip in.
NBATV is whack too.
Instead of showing a dual replay of both TNT games last night, they're only replaying MIA vs ORL.
The game was on TNT
ESPN is not a non profit organisation
LA market size dwarfs SA market size. Add in a lot of Laker fans outside So Cal ...
It's the way it's always been and always will be.
For those who remember the Knicks won two les in the early 70s and because NY was the media center - those teams where revered way past there time
btw, an article on machism @ ESPN
February 3, 2011
Dominating the Man Cave
By BRUCE FEILER
BRISTOL, Conn.
BARELY eight hours after the American Football Conference and the National Football Conference championship games ended two weeks ago, Mike & Mike — the Laurel and Hardy combo of Mike Greenberg, a spry fashion-minded sportscaster; and Mike Golic, a doughy former N.F.L. lineman — were on ESPN radio and television breaking down the games. For four hours, the two dissected, debated and distilled impressions of the contenders for Super Bowl XLV until settling on a single story line.
In the A.F.C., the Pittsburgh Steelers did the manly thing with the game on the line by throwing on third down. “As much as it kills me,” said Mr. Greenberg, a long-suffering Jets fan, “I have so much respect for that call. Play to win.”
In the N.F.C., the Chicago Bears quarterback Jay Cutler did not seem to do the manly thing; he left the game with a knee injury. “My initial thought,” Mr. Golic said, “was how can he not be out there? You would have to drag me off the field.”
Two contests, one question: How much of a man are you?
In part because it’s rarely discussed in mixed company, ESPN may be the most under-acknowledged media powerhouse in the United States. Since its debut in 1979, ESPN has ridden round-the-clock highlights, live events and testosterone-infused commentary into a 3D juggernaut of television, radio, print and digital that arguably cons utes the single greatest cultural force in male iden y today.
Consider these facts: ESPN is the third-rated network on cable, according to Nielsen ratings. Half of all Americans, age 12 to 64, encounter one of its platforms every week, the network’s research shows. That figure includes two-thirds of men age 18 to 34, who stay an average of 56 minutes a day. Your husband, your neighbor, your boss may be spending one hour a day on ESPN. That loyalty adds up. ESPN’s revenues last year totaled $8.65 billion, according to Morgan Stanley, making up 23 percent of the total revenues of its parent, the Walt Disney Company.
“Nothing reaches men like sports,” said Michael Wilbon, a co-host on ESPN for “Pardon the Interruption,” “and nothing has branded sports like ESPN.”
Even sex has been affected. Jim Miller, the author, with Tom Shales, of the forthcoming book “Those Guys Have All The Fun,” said the 11 p.m. “SportsCenter” has been called “birth control.” It must not work that well; the authors found 22 Americans named Espin or Espy.
What does all this mean for American men? What messages about masculinity is ESPN sending? For starters, because most of its on-air personalities are former athletes, ESPN is one of the most integrated networks on television. The multiracial, multi-ethnic commentariat effortlessly reinforces the meritocracy that lies at the heart of sports. ESPN looks like the American locker room.
Perhaps because of that, ESPN has an unmistakable obsession with the male body, clothed and unclothed. “The proper man dresses properly” is the prevailing message of the parade of handmade suits, wide-knotted ties and multi-carat bling. Every one of the dozen men I spoke to at ESPN headquarters here described in detail his wardrobe philosophy, from Armani sweaters to high-collared shirts to the ultimate sports accessory, “the ring.”
“You’re just trying to get a reaction even if the reaction is bad,” said Merril Hoge, an N.F.L. analyst and former player. “I’ve been stopped in a bathroom and asked to tie someone’s tie, because I tie mine a little differently.”
More than clothes, hair is a ubiquitous topic. In recent weeks, I heard exchanges on “Who has the best hair in the N.F.L. playoffs?” “Who has the better hair, Green Bay’s Clay Matthews or his brother, Casey, from Oregon?” “Whose locks would you rather have, Troy Polamalu’s (he does Head & Shoulders commercials) or Tom Brady’s (he didn’t cut his hair all season at the behest of his supermodel wife)?” From bald jokes to hair-club advertisements to compe ive sideburns, ESPN has become the global barbershop.
“When I was a kid there was a barbershop on every block,” said Mr. Greenberg, who appeared in a network promo with cu bers over his eyes, getting a manicure. “Now we do ads on our show for these spa salons, basically beauty parlors for men. Some men go to them and don’t admit it, but more and more men are comfortable admitting it.”
The height of the new jock vanity is ESPN’s infatuation with male bodies. Commentators drool over other men’s abs, thighs and guns. ESPN The Magazine’s response to the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue is its Body issue, which features entirely naked men (and some women). The magazine even sells posters of the Knick superstar Amar’e Stoudemire dunking nude or the United States soccer goalie Tim Howard diving au naturel.
“It’s sort of like ‘Dieux du Stade’ in France,” Mr. Shales said, referring to a French rugby team’s collections of revealing photos, “where athletes don’t find it feminizing to pose almost naked in pictures. The athletes legitimize male preening. It’s so masculine it’s almost feminine.”
“As a woman I love it,” said Mic e Beadle, a co-host of “SportsNation” on ESPN, “because we’ve long been influenced by magazines and TV. It’s fun to watch it on the other side. When athletes come in to do interviews, it’s like a fashion show.”
All of this talk of New Manhood does have an undercurrent of Old Manhood: how women are treated. On the one hand, ESPN deserves credit, after decades of negligence, for finally featuring women. “When I first started doing sports,” said Dana Jacobson, a co-host of “First Take,” “my dad said, ‘I think you’re really good, but I’d still rather watch a guy.’ After a couple of years, he finally changed his mind. And he’s not alone.”
But women are still the company’s sore spot. The network has experienced a rash of scandals involving sexual misconduct, workplace affairs and inappropriate language that at times makes ESPN the subject of as much gossip and lawsuits as the athletes it covers. This pink cloud has made covering the misconduct of superstars, like the Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, more challenging.
“I would hope that if we really are reaching that many young men,” Ms. Beadle said, “that we make sure we send a message.” She loved “celebrating the great stuff,” she said, but became upset “when you hear one dumb story after another about what men are doing.”
“Sometimes I think we don’t report those stories as much as other companies because of our relationship,” she said. “I want to make sure we don’t always make those guys heroes. What happens is that for the 17-, 18-year-old kid, the message is that he’s good at a sport, so it doesn’t matter how much of a pig he is.”
If this awkward mix of male sensitivity and insensitivity — running product through your hair while pinching the bottom of a colleague — sounds familiar, maybe it’s because it reflects (and perhaps shapes) a larger male ambiguity. ESPN encapsulates the same atmosphere of perpetual male adolescence that infuses Judd Apatow movies, all those grown-up Halo and Modern Warfare players, the endless movie superheroes.
As Josh Elliott, a “SportsCenter” anchor, said: “ESPN is Neverland. It’s a place where people never have to grow up. And if you’re a man, if you grew up in a world where you are largely expected to be unemotional, where it’s cool not to care, you have this one place where you can go that’s all about caring.”
So when the Super Bowl rolls around, Mr. Elliott said, and the Green Bay Packers’ Aaron Rodgers throws that touchdown pass in the last second of the game, “you get to cry.”
“And you’ll always love the fact that there is something in your life that moves you to tears,” he said. “And that it’s the same thing that moved your father and your grandfather.”
In a world where men do everything fast, from driving to parenting to flipping channels, ESPN is one place that forces them to stop, respect the clock at the center of most games, and connect to the men in their past. ESPN is the ultimate time machine. It takes men back to their boyhoods, and delivers them back to their sons, all in just under an hour.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/06/fa...gewanted=print
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No surprise that ESPN pimps Disney's local team.
Yep
I was hoping for a replay of LAL-Spurs
Green Bay says hi from the NFL.
Are we saying that the other teams don't matter as much because of market size or that championships don't matter? I'm saying that the 4-letter is trying so hard to shape something sexy that when none of their options come up...they suffer from IMPOTENCE.
That is self-inflicted. Recognize that International Stars can beat All-American ones. This is a WORLD game now.
Spurs fans crying for love. What else is new?
It ain't love man...it's RESPECT!
You guys might not agree but I'm of the opinion that the Spurs aren't given the respect because they are a team led by Internationals who are regularly being a constant pain in the ass of the glamor big market teams. It's a Media Network Version of Selective Mutism.
Selective Mutism defined is a speaking disorder where a person who is capable of normal speech, is unable to speak in given situations or certain people.
The 4-letter practices this on an everyday basis and if you guys paid attention, you'd see that.
The NFL on the other hand, plays the heavy on it's networks because they know the power of the league and the power each team, no matter the market size, has. In essence, the NFL has the power to do whatever the it wants, whereas Stern is the Bend Over Gumby to the Networks. If you cover the Spurs with the kind of coverage the 4-Letter gives Duke University, then the casual fan might get a chance to discover just how special this team is. And if you tell me San Antonio never got any NBA love, I'll tell you that when George Gervin was leading the league in scoring, the Spurs were a team that the West Coast filled arenas to watch. Of course, this was before the 4-letter became the casual fans "Mirror-Mirror."
Populations
Green Bay WI: 101K, metro 282K
Milwaukee WI: 605K, metro 1.7M
You know the hierarchy of ESPN coverage.I expected Lebrons 50pt night to take priority over the best team in the west beating the 2nd best with a last .2 sec tip in.
LA Lakers> LeBron's personal performance
LeBron's personal performance > Kobe's personal performance
Kobe's personal performance > Miami Heat
Miami Heat > Boston Celtics
Boston Celtics > actual nightly highlights
...
...
...
WNBA > LA Clippers*
* This rule is null and void if Blake Griffin goes off
We can talk Metropolitan Statistical Areas all day. I'm a certified Subject Matter Expert on Census Data. But what's the point. It's not really about Market Size. It's about what they deem SIZZLE factor. TP could pull the same move that Rajon Rondo pulls and they'd cover it differently and slant American. They could just focus it on being a great play by both. But they choose to only highlight the Big Market American. How many times have you thought this Spurs team do something you thought, could be a highlight play on the 4-letter, only to see some college freshman for some mid-major university with a losing record, go up on a basic breakaway dunk make the reel?
That my peeps, is SELECTIVE MUTISM.
It doesn't matter what they think. 41-8 says it all.
No, I saw this too. I stayed up last night to see what SportsCenter would say. They showed some highlight reel professionally done of Blake Griffin, then explained that they like Blake's name because the "E" in Blake means the same as the "E" in ESPN (which he is a e-n-t-e-r-t-a-i-n-m-e-n-t).
Then went on to talk about the all-star reserves and how they are voted in by coaches and, unfortunately not producers. As you may guess, he mentioned Manu and Tim first.
It's completely bogus and pisses me off for 30 seconds. But then I just feel sad for them because they do nothing but produce soap operas to men.
Its funny, i mean in the end i really don't care but in ESPN's headlines this morning as they do their rundown of sport news, you could see that on the left hand side it says "Lakers lose at Buzzer" instead of Spurs win or something to that extent.
Meh, Lamar Odom didn't make any excuses and gave Dice his props.
lol don't surprise me.. just adds to what ive been saying for the longest..
It's my opinion with no data- but I think metropolitan area does influence these things. I think for multiple reasons- the NFL is an exception. All games are televised- there are limited number of games- revenue sharing etc.
However, how many players on Green Bay can you name versus how many on Dallas- not a fair question if you live in Texas but outside...
Hhhooooooww whack is it??!!
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