I'm almost all the way through the ESPN oral history by Jim Miller and highly recommend it. Below is what I've learned so far (spoiler alert, sort of):
*Keith Olbermann is a genius.
*Chris Fowler acknowledged the hatred and animosity he received after Peyton Manning lost the Heisman. He plays innocent, but I remember it feeling like every week he was finding flaws in Manning and pointing out why Woodson was an alternative. He says he voted for Manning.
*There was a time when ESPN secretaries were turning tricks in a nearby apartment building for extra cash. Oh, and there was a huge sexual harassment problem at ESPN.
*And Mike Tirico seems to be the creepiest harasser.
*Keith Olbermann is a genius.
*I miss Australian rules football.
*I don't miss most of Mark Shapiro's ideas, though PTI is consistently good sports television. Shapiro's story is cool - from nobody to running the place based on undeniable brilliance, but also a tool who took the NHL off ESPN and kept trying to find programming that would bring women to ESPN. I'm glad he no longer works for ESPN.
*He got his start on Jim Rome's show. The Jim Everett thing was a) not fake and b) a huge regret for Rome as it has stayed with him forever. I would have bet against both of those things.
*Jim Nantz is Jim Nance. Not once, but throughout the whole book.
*Keith Olbermann is a genius.
*I didn't have ESPN2 when it first came out, but do remember when Duke/UNC was put there. I had no idea about the Keith Olbermann (who is a genius) leather jacket thing.
*ESPN wasn't cool with "Master Batter" as a home run call, even from Linda Cohn. I kind of like it.
*Chris Berman is a horribly unlikable, egotistical narcissist throughout the book. You can forgive one bad quotation, but every time he gets space in the book he pats himself on the back. I remember once really liking him, then souring and now I'm likely to change the channel when I see him.
*I don't remember the Ron Artest/ESPN saga - that the announcers in the studio immediately defended Artest and blamed the fans. John Saunders is also African-Canadian.
*I miss the days when SportsCenter was highlights instead of incessant analysis of things that don't need analyzing from people incapable of providing interesting analysis. Maybe that's just me.
*Charley Steiner makes a decent argument for why golf isn't a sport - a sport must have defense. I'm exploring that in a blog post at some point.
*Keith Olbermann is a genius.
*The brilliance of the SportsCenter commercials is played out perfectly. They were kind of stupid on the surface (why promote a show that's on every night on the channel it is on and is the main thing the network is known for?) but brilliant (totally different, really funny, the perfect branding for the company).
*ESPN is clearly less likable than it used to be. That pours off the pages. It is a monopoly at this point and monopolies consistently suck. There are some interesting parallels in my mind between the WWE's monopoly on pro wresting these days and ESPN's monopoly on sports (another future blog topic?).
*Speaking of wresting, the book mentions the AWA on ESPN (which was terrible), but doesn't mention World Class wrestling (which was awesome). Nobody cared about Nick Bockwinkel, but we loved the Von Erichs and hated the Freebirds. That was some good wrestling.
*It is still real to me, dammit.
*I have never understood why Suzy Kolber interviewed a clearly-intoxicated Joe Namath on live TV. Easy answer - she hadn't talked to him beforehand.
*Why put sports on ESPN that nobody watches? Because even though the ratings for softball might be terrible, there are people who, back in the day at least, made sure to have ESPN just so they could watch softball. That was interesting - they went away from the ratings, ratings, ratings formula and it was brilliant.
*My favorite people in terms of their oral histories: Keith Olbermann (genius), Charley Steiner, John Walsh, Jeremy Schaap, Tony Kornheisser.
*Least favorites: Chris Berman, Mark Shapiro, Rush Limbaugh (nothing wrong with Dan Patrick, but his stuff is pretty bland for the most part).
*Short but sweet: Bobby Knight's take on the Jeremy Schaap inteview.
I'm haven't entered the Bill Simmons era yet, but am looking forward to reading it. More than I'm looking forward to Grantland after yesterday's launch.
No comments:
Post a Comment