The Evil of Empire (of sports) comes to Dallas…

I’m not your typical sports fan. I love sports, but only if my teams are involved, either directly or indirectly. During football season, I care about only the Cowboys. I’ll watch other NFC East games, because I know the outcome will have a direct effect on the Cowboys’ in the standings, but I have no interest in the performance of Chris Cooley, Donovan McNabb or Osi Umenyiora. I don’t watch basketball to see Kobe, LeBron or D’Wade.  I care about only the players who wear my teams’ uniform.

Since I live in Dallas, I’m lucky enough to have a ton of media coverage for each of my favorite teams. Before moving to Dallas, I had to depend on the limited coverage in the local papers and ESPN. With ESPN, I had to sit through 58 minutes of New England Patriot talk or New York Yankees talk, just to get a two minute segment on the Cowboys or Rangers. Maybe that’s why since moving to Dallas I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve actually watched Sports Center. Additionally, the advent of the league owned networks (i.e. NBA TV, NFL Network, MLB Network, etc.) have allowed me to keep up with my rivals without tuning into ESPN.

Based on a recent article in the New York Times, ESPN is targeting sports fans such as myself. In April, they launched ESPN Chicago, a website devoted to the city’s professional sports teams and local collegiate programs. ESPN plans to launch similar sites in three other cities, including one in Dallas in the fall. You would think that I would welcome their arrival, especially since the website promises local flavor; however, as I have weened myself off of the ESPN teet over the past few years, I’ve gained a sense of clarity and see ESPN for what it really is–a superfluous conglomerate that has destroyed the world of professional sports as we know it. What MTV did to music, ESPN has done to sports!

Forgot for a moment ESPN’s “East Coast bias,”  as exhibited by not only their content, but also the birthplace of many of their personalities.  Look at ESPN for what it has become, generic sports television, full of “know-it all” personalities and Captain Obvious comments and observations. Indeed, ESPN is no longer relevant in the world of sports.

Do they have deep pockets? Yes.  Are they well connected? Without a doubt, but being connected and being relevant are two completely different things.

If you read through the article, you will find that ESPN is trying to connect on a local level, that they plan to utilize fans as cub reporters, or “citizen journalists”, to send in pictures, video clips and scores from local sporting events, including high school sports. The way the ESPN executives speak, they feel that this is a completely new concept. What it shows is how out of touch ESPN is with the “flyover” states.

There are websites all over the state of Texas where fans can get together to discuss local sports, share scores, pictures and videos. The websites are run and maintained by members of the community and the writers, editors and forum moderators mix and mingle with their audience at the local high school football or basketball games.  These same sites provide the opportunity for fans to come together and discuss local pro and college teams as well. Basically, everything ESPN hopes to accomplish with their local websites has been in place since the turn of the century in many communities. The biggest difference is that they lack ESPN’s name and all that goes with it.

If there is anything we love as much as our sports in Dallas, it’s our Tex-Mex food. We have literally hundreds of restaurants where you can order tacos, fajitas and margaritas. Some of these restaurants are family-owned and operated, with family recipes that go back several generations.  Other restaurants are chains run by large corporations. While the chain may boasts fancy new digs and clever marketing, their food cannot compete with the family owned restaurants. They also lack the intimacy that makes the customer feel at home. At the end of the day, if you’re hungry for Tex-Mex in Dallas, you have the choice between Mia’s or On the Border. Nine out of ten Dallas-ites would choose Mia’s.

A little hint to the mental midgets running ESPN, in Dallas we consumer our sports like do our Tex-Mex food. A sparkling web design and clever marketing will only hold an audience for so long, eventually you’re going to have to cook up something worth eating and serve it in an intimate environment.

Burying the lead

The top story  on the NBA page of ESPN.com features a story about the potential trade of Carlos Boozer to the Chicago Bulls, a fascinating proposition indeed. (The potential trade involves Tyrus Thomas, a freakish athlete that would be perfect for the Mavs, but I digress.)

ESPN buried the lead. If you read the entire story you learn that Bulls were potentially the 4th party in the Shawn Marion trade, before dropping out. If the Bulls had stayed in the trade, the Mavs would have received Tim Thomas from the Bulls in addition to Marion from the Raptors.  As I’ve previously stated, I’m glad to have Marion, but I would have loved to have Tim Thomas as well.

Can you imagine how awkward it would have been for Thomas to be on the same team with Dirk, after the infamous kiss (and Dirk’s subsequent 50+ plus performance) in the 2006 playoffs?

Would that be more awkward than John Kitna playing on the same team with Bradie James?

Mavs close to trading for Marion?

ESPN and the Dallas Morning News are both reporting that the Mavs and Raptors are in the process of trade talks for Shawn Marion. At first glance, I love this move. It looks like it would cost us Stack and some cash. Other sources say it may require a third team. I hope Cuban does whatever it takes to pull this move off.  This would leave you with the Damp contract to play with and it might make Josh Howard expendable. Marion is not who he was in 2006, but he is still a great player and would instantly make this Mavs squad better than the team we saw lose to the Nuggets. More on this to come….

College World Series

I’ve had a great time watching the College World Series over the past week. As I write, Texas and LSU, two of the most tradition rich college baseball programs, are tied up in the top of the 10th, with LSU threatening.  This is Game 1 of the Best-of-3 championship series and it has been everything you could want out of a championship game. Yet the top sports stories of the day involve a no-name wining the U.S. Open and the Yankees being sore losers.

I’ve always wondered why the College World Series plays such a minor role in the sports world.  To me, it’s a better sporting event-more exciting sporting event (if you don’t believe that, look at what Texas has done this post-season)–than the Final Four, yet the national media flocks to the Final Four and you’re lucky to find a box score from the College World Series in your daily newspaper.

Why is that?

ESPN, the evil sport Svengali, controls the world of sports media or at least they think they do. They  believe that the interests of the I-95 corridor represent the interests of the entire nation. College baseball is not very big in the I-95 corridor, so ESPN doesn’t think it will play well nationally. College baseball is big in the South, out West and in Middle America, places like Omaha, Nebraska–places that ESPN just does not understand.

What have you missed if you haven’t caught any of this year’s College World Series?

You’ve missed a college sport that, relatively speaking, is scandal free. When was the last time you saw a college baseball program involved in a dirty scandal like the Memphis basketball program or Florida State’s football program?

You’ve missed a bran of baseball where fundamentals are stressed. Yes, even clean-up hitters can, and do, bunt at this level.

You’ve missed a championship sporting event where the game remains the center of attention. While corporate sponsors control every aspect of the BCS and the Final Four, the College World Series has few commercial gimmicks and focuses on the game instead.

There’s still time to enjoy the excitement. Game 1 is now tied in the Top 11th and it looks like this one could last a while. Tomorrow night we have Game 2 and Game 3, if necessary, will be Wednesday night.  If you’re like me and complain about the lack of summer sports excitement, this is your last chance before training camp starts later next month.
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Now playing: Counting Crows – Omaha
via FoxyTunes

Sports Talk Radio

I love talk radio, especially sports talk radio, and I’ve been lucky enough to experience talk radio not only as a consumer of the product, but also as “on-air talent.”  I will not lie; part of me thinks my brief radio experience, in a very small media market, qualifies me as an expert on the subject. So every day, while at work, I turn the dial until I find some program to critique.  From Rush Limbaugh to Thom Hartmann, from Mike and Mike In The Morning to The Hardline, if they are talking, I’ll listen and many times I’ll end up writing about something I heard that day.

Today is no different!

Since moving to Dallas, I’ve been amazed at how The Ticket (KTCK 1310 AM) kicks the local ESPN radio affiliate’s ass (ESPN 103.3 FM). Ask any Metroplex male in between the age of 24-50 and you’ll probably get a hundred different answers on why they prefer The Ticket to ESPN radio, but I suspect 95% of those answers would deal with entertainment value. In the end, sports talk radio exists to entertain. If a station fails to entertain, it fails to serve its’ purpose and will eventually fail.

What makes for entertaining radio? Well, it’s kind of like pornography–you’ll know it when you see it, or in this case hear it.  I think we can begin by listing what makes radio NOT entertaining.

1.) Phones Sure, listener feedback can be helpful and possibly even entertaining, in small recommended doses, but when I tune into a radio program, I do so to listen to the on-air talent and not “Doug in Garland“. As I began my journey into radio, a great talent taught me that an on-air personality should not go to the phones more than one segment per hour. Tune into ESPN 103.3 and their shows contain a ton of phone calls and text messaging, especially Randy Galloway‘s program.

2.) No Experts Needed In the world of sports, experts don’t exist and anyone who claims to be one is lying out their ass. Sure, it helps to understand the techniques and nuances associated with the games; however, in the end, there are way too many intangibles to attempt to proclaim some universal truth.  Sports journalist serve two functions—report and entertain. The last thing I want from a sports journalist is conversations with other media members. If I wanted to know what Todd Archer thought about the Dallas Cowboys, I’d read the Morning News. If I cared what John Clayton thought, I would watch ESPN. If, for some reason, I turn on Randy Galloway’s radio program I do so with the hope (or fear) of hearing Grandpa Urine. The on-air talent who depends on “experts” expresses low confidence in their ability to both report and entertain.

3.) Tunnel Vision We have all read the various studies; we live in a country of shrinking attention spans. Yet some radio producers failed to read the memo. Many sports talk radio stations, especially the generic sports talk stations, want to take a 3 hour radio program and focus on one or two issues. Even in July, material exists to fill a 3-hour program. Sure, you may have to venture off the sports page, but being cultured and diverse never hurt anyone. In short, after two segments on a subject, it is time to move on to another subject. After that time, you’ve said all that can said and you risk rambling or even worse yet, becoming cliché.

4.) Don’t Take Yourself Too Seriously Jock talkers are the worst when it comes to egos. Turn on sports talk and you’re going to hear extreme bravado. While I think it is necessary to be self confident, on-air personalities need to realize that in the end, they’re talking sports, which is entertainment and for which there are no experts. For example, let’s take Dallas sports talk personality, Chuck Cooperstein, “Coop” carries himself as a man’s man. He speaks with the deep baritone falsetto of “radio voice” and issues strong opinions, often against the home team, to appear non-biased. He grows impatient if talk deviates, even for one second, from sports and grows even more irate if the conversation turns to certain sports topics he feels are not worthy of “talk” (i.e. high school football, fantasy sports, etc.). “Coop” needs to realize he might be a little more successful if he broadened his horizons.