MVN - Most Valuable Network

Tuesday Rundown: All Is Not Well For The Worldwide Leader

Item: Excellent article from the Sports Business Journal about the rising criticism ESPN has been facing. First of all, I couldn’t agree more with the beef some of the leagues have against The Worldwide Leader…they’re complaining that ESPN’s marketing department is doing a better job of promoting ESPN than the actual leagues and teams televised by the channel.

Another assertion against the channel that has become increasingly common is that leagues receive less exposure by moving their games from broadcast television to ESPN — despite the cross-platform promotion that ESPN can offer leagues (Exhibit A: Arena Football…check out the article for more on that).

My take: There couldn’t be more truth to the statement that ESPN is more concerned about promoting itself rather than the leagues it televises. Turn on SportsCenter for a minute, and you’ll see no shortage of shameless self-promotion — “Who’s Now?” and “The Greatest Highlight” for example. Indeed, you’ll rarely see ESPN offer compelling coverage of the leagues they televise, and that’s certainly not an intelligent business decision on their part.

Clearly, there are lots of legitimate beefs that bloggers, leagues, and people in the sports media have against ESPN — but there’s just one problem: ESPN controls so much of the sports world, that there’s not much people can do about these gripes. They hold significant stakes in the NCAA, MLB, NBA, NFL, and several other leagues — seriously folks, The Worldwide Leader is a dominating force not just in sports media, but in the sports scene as a whole.

And because of that dominance, changes in the channel will be few and far between…unless the leagues get seriously irked at the channel, we’ll continue seeing endless self-promotion, over-hyped programming, and a lack of compelling coverage at ESPN. But I’m just glad that people are starting to get annoyed at the crap the channel’s been pulling.

Item: Viva la revolucion! On Sunday, 39 Milwaukee Bucks fans wore paper bags over their heads at the Bradley Center while watching their team get crushed by the Celtics, 99-77. The demonstrators aimed to display their dissatisfaction with Milwaukee’s 23-43 record this season, and it seemed to work quite well — during the fourth quarter, the guys marched directly past team owner Herb Kohl’s seat, and he was clearly quite annoyed by the demonstration. Click the link to see a hilarious picture of Kohl’s reaction to the revolutionaries.

My take: The demonstration hasn’t gotten as much attention in the press as those guys would’ve liked, but hey…they should still consider the evening a resounding success because of the brilliant decision to march past Kohl. Well done, gentlemen. I wish owners of lousy teams could be confronted by pissed off fans more often.

Item: OK, just a second ago, I was ripping ESPN, but I’m willing to give them credit where credit’s due. And oh sweet Jesus, immense credit is due in this case. Indeed, ESPN opted to give the masses one more college basketball broadcast of the season that will be announced by Lavinburger and Erin Andrews, as the announcing team will make their farewell from the college basketball season by calling tonight’s NCAA tournament play-in game between Mount Saint Mary’s and Coppin State.

My take: Well, that just gave me a reason to tune into a completely meaningless game that will only determine who will end up getting slaughtered by UNC later this week. Also, if you’re interested, Awful Announcing has the announcing schedule for the opening round of the Big Dance, and the announcing teams are looking pretty solid. I’m a big fan of Kevin Harlan and Jim Nantz, and I’m also looking forward to seeing the beloved Gus Johnson call a few games in the first round. Is it Thursday yet?

Item: Maybe you should have taken that Orlando Magic job after all, Billy Donovan. The Florida coach went ape sh*t on his squad after they had their Big Dance hopes crushed by losing in the first round of the SEC tournament. You’re not gonna believe this: He went Coach Carter on his players’ asses, and locked them out of the Gators’ $12 million practice facility. Donovan also informed his team that they couldn’t wear any Gators attire.

My take: While at first glance, Donovan may seem like he’s completely lost his mind, I’m actually a fan of his harsh coaching moves. If you want to make an impression on the team’s younger players in a hurry, locking them out of the practice facility actually seems like a decent decision…now THAT’S one helluva kick in the pants to give his players.

I can certainly understand why some would think Donovan is overreacting after this rough rebuilding year for Florida, but I’d contend that this is an excellent motivational technique, and will pay dividends in the long run.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 18th, 2008 at 3:42 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.