8:00 PM CSN Baltimore has video of Marcus Smith, a U.S. soldier who dressed as a minor league umpire to surprise his children at a Bowie Baysox game with a home visit from Afghanistan.
7:45 PM A Japanese Harley-Davidson motorcycle that was swept out to sea during last year's tsunami washed up on a shore in British Columbia last month. The bike's owner asked that the motorcycle be displayed at the Harley-Davidson Museum in Milwaukee as a memorial to the tsunami victims.
7:30 PM Buffalo Bills receiver David Clowneytweeted the results of his HIV test which came back negative. And to the critics of his decision to share his results, Clowney added: "Some people are Ridiculously stupid ... And can't see the bigger picture about things that are important in this world."
One of the most jarring aspects of the Stanley Cup finals, other than the ease with which the Red Wings dispatched the Penguins on Sunday night to push the series to 3-2, has been NBC’s hardball with fans in Detroit and Pittsburgh. For the duration of the playoffs, both teams have been able to hold massive viewing parties in and outside their arenas. It was such a wonderful, organic expression of the communal nature of fandom that it was basically destined to be ruined by business in short order.
(Thousands of fans watching the game with each other? Nope, can’t have this!)
A near-sellout of Joe Louis could shave a ratings point off the local television ratings measurement, and such ratings are used to establish advertising rates.
So to that, if the all-important ratings model can’t deal with 8-10 thousand people watching a show in one place on one screen, you know what? The ratings model is completely worthless. Seriously. How can NBC or Nielsen not figure out what to do with a giant honking party of some of the most hardcore fans all watching one screen? Is that really a deal-breaker?
And if so, if they’re really curious as to what the ratings would look like if everyone stays home, away from the shared community aspect from which most of the value of a ticket to a game is derived, there’s a really easy answer to all of this. You ready? Dick Ebersol, you taking notes?
All NBC has to do is announce that in exchange for showing the game outside both arenas, attending fans have to fill out a simple, anonymous survey about where they would otherwise watch a game (their place or someone else’s), with how many people, and whatever other information the network needs to most closely approximate what ratings would look like. Use that and Nielsen data to extrapolate what the final ratings would be with that many eyes on a TV, and adjust. That’s it. Easy.
This is a rare, rare opportunity for the NHL and NBC. At no other point are they ever going to be able to get this kind of a free pool of television watchers from whom they can mine valuable demographic information. Forcing them back into their homes and away from a group of thousands of like-minded, passionate fans for the sake of moving a needle one or two points does the city, fanbase, and team a disservice. It’s so easy to work around. Figure it out.
Speaking of soccer [I thought we were talking about hockey. No, I’m dead certain of it.–ed.] [Shut up.–AJ] [You have problems.–ed.], UEFA just got a seismic news flash as Real Madrid, evidently furious at having seen FC Barca take the title, has bought the contract of Kaka from AC Milan. Too bad UEFA contract holder SETANTA SPORTS probably won’t survive to see him in the new kit.
Kaka, a sensational striker from the one-word-name factory that is Brazil, will reportedly command a 6-year, $94 million contract. That’s enough to make it the most expensive in soccer’s history, barely beating out Zinedine Zidane’s 6-year, $65 million deal with Juventus from eight years ago. Meanwhile, David Beckham is running around for a crappy MLS team in Los Angeles for 30 cents on the dollar and going home to a bag of antlers with oversized sunglasses and the “I’m married, but still vain” haircut straight from Jon & Kate + 8. Sic transit gloria mundi: Glory is fleeting.
But as we (rightfully) focus on the three people killed far before their time, we should point out that one passenger in Adenhart’s car, 24-year-old Jon Wilhite,has, in fact, survived the crash that left him in critical condition (via the RIVERSIDE PRESS-ENTERPRISE). Wait, that doesn’t appropriately convey the gravity of what happened. He survived internal decapitation.
As MANOLITH explains, internal decapitation, which is exactly as horrifying and life-threatening as it sounds, happens when the skull detaches from the spinal column. It’s usually fatal. Wilhite somehow survived without total paralysis, which is unbelievably rare, and he’s now in rehab with the help of several major leaguers. He’s got a long way to go, but he’s on the right track.
Thanks to the sports media’s ludicrous east coast bias, GASLAMP BALL is the only site to notice THE ONION’s satirical piece on NL home run leader Adrian Gonzalez’s anonymity doesn’t even have the right picture of him in an article about said east coast bias. Intentional? Maybe. It’s fitting either way.
This is Dahntay Jones, Chris “Birdman” Andersen, Grant Hill, and Amar’e Stoudemire playing “The Team Mating Game” on JIMMY KIMMEL LIVE. Big ups to BALL DON’T LIE for finding the video, and yes, you are watching this with rapt attention. Don’t lie and say you’re not; yes, you are.
David Ortiz’s stupid excuse to blame his eyes on his slump didn’t work; they’re fine. Is Rafael Nadalgoing down the same road with his knees?
And finally, the Oakland Raiders have spent a metric buttload of high-level draft picks on skill players, but is their best move in the return to relevance the signing of 16-year free agent fullback Lorenzo Neal? FANTASYPROS911.COM thinks so.
Every year we are subjected to stories in the news marveling at the exorbitant and ever-climbing rates charged for television advertising during the Super Bowl. Earlier this year, 30 second ad spots during Super Bowl XLIII were going for the princely sum of $3 million. With all that money floating around, surely broadcaster NBC is raking in money hand over fist, right?
Well, maybe not. NBC’s parent company, General Electric, has released the financials relating to their coverage and broadcast of Super Bowl XLIII, and claims that they — get this — lost $45 million dollars on the deal. Not surprisingly, some observers aren’t buying it.
Unless you’ve been living in Antarctica, you know that this is the week that Tiger Woods is returning to competition, where he would undoubtedly roll over the competition en route to yet another title in the WGC Match Play Championship. Well, somebody forgot to give Tim Clark the memo, because he steamrolled Tiger on the back 9 and beat him 4 & 2.
In the process, Clark destroyed all hope that anyone will be watching the final matches this weekend. NBC, which is airing the final two days, was so confident (or perhaps, so desperate) for Tiger would make it to the weekend that it has been airing ads the last few days virtually guaranteeing his appearance on their broadcasts. Oops.
I didn’t watch that much of NBC’s pre-game coverage of the Super Bowl yesterday because frankly, the two weeks of build up to the game was enough for me. I didn’t need another five hours of hearing about how nobody expected the Cardinals to be there, or how Ben Roethlisberger was nervous during his first trip to the Super Bowl against the Seahawks a few years ago. That and I didn’t want to hear Tiki Barber say things like the Cardinals “are a team of density”.
I’m sure a lot of people in Detroit felt the same way, because everywhere they looked there were reminders of how bad the Detroit Lions suck. First of all, they were at a Super Bowl, something the Lions may not even know exists. Then there was Jerome Bettis, who is from Detroit and won a Super Bowl in Detroit, but not for the Lions. Oh, and then there was Matt Millen on the screen every few minutes pretending to know anything about football, when any Lions fan could tell you he clearly doesn’t. Dealing with Millen’s mug on the screen was probably more than any Lions fan could take, so thankfully Detroit’s NBC affiliate made sure to run a warning on the screen whenever he showed up.
The reviews coming in on NBC’s coverage of the Olympics are still reviewed. Were they willing perpetrators in a abuse-covering escapade seen the world over? Were they strong journalists working to report the facts, no matter the cost? In reality, they were something in the middle: Earnest reporters shackled by their bosses’ desires to provide an entertaining, not-too-thought-provoking Olympic spectacle. The king stay the king.
That doesn’t absolve NBC of the small things it could have done to improve their coverage, and this is one of them: The network forgot to mention the sexual orientation of Matthew Mitcham, the only openly gay male competing at the Olympics, even after he won a gold medal.
Most of us watching the U.S. Open endurance test between Tiger Woods and Rocco Mediate last weekend caught some off-hand comments from NBC golf analyst Johnny Miller regarding Mediate’s chances of the David vs. Goliath-style upset, particularly with regard to something about Rocco looking “like the guy who cleans Tiger’s swimming pool.”
That gaffe just happened to rile a few people, as most of us predicted when we heard it, and the NEW YORK TIMES’ sports media reporter Richard Sandomir writes that Miller has officially issued an apology for the wisecrack.
I’m still waiting for both him and his partner Dan Hicks to apologize for the sloppy mess they made slobbering over Woods from late last Saturday on, but at least it’s a start, y’know?
