But it's definitely thought-provoking.
Well, I do know one thing I feel- this author is a little bit slow if he didn't know the Stanley Cup Finals were happening these past two weeks or that Justine Henin retired. Obviously those events didn't get much coverage, but they still got some coverage.
Anyways... other than that, I'm not sure what to think about it.
It's an ok article, except for the shining moment of stupidity when he says it's impossible for a small sport to become big unless it's one of the following exceptions:
ReplyDelete"mixed martial arts (boosted by savvy marketing), NASCAR (boosted by demographics) and soccer (boosted by contrarian Anglophiles)"
Savy marketing is something any league could do, "boosted by demographics"...as opposed to all those sports that are watched by people who aren't in demographics, and "contrarian anglophiles" is probably the worst possible way to understand soccer's recent rise in popularity.
What is the savvy marketing that MMA uses? Explosions and roman numerals?
ReplyDeleteThis guy is a total clod.
Hey, the stanley cup is over (and I hate the Red Wings)...and the NBA finals are about to start. The NBA finals could go on for 2 weeks. Consider the pot that was boiling a few weeks ago stirred again.
ReplyDeleteAnd for the record, I can't decide how I feel about the article either...
ReplyDeleteThe article is full of shit.
ReplyDeleteI grew up (as did Larry and probably mst other people here) in the days where getting sports news either came from the half hour sportscenter or fucking the sports section of the newspaper.
I assure you that the Green Bay Press Gazette's sports section (Section C) did not have more extensive, hand wringing coverage of a fucking title fight or the Belmont Stakes than ESPN does now.
If ANYTHING Sportscenter (and the internet) today covers TOO MANY bullshit sports in the nae of corporate synergy.
I do not care to see 15 minute spots on Nascar races, the Kentucky Derby, or, yes ( :) ) the NBA Playoffs, but I get it anyway. I also get tons of stuff about:
Tennis
Golf
Boxing
Indy Car
WNBA
Poker (?)
College baseball
and fucking competitive eating
in addition to the big sports.
I guarantee I would not have seen any of that in the sports section of the fucking local newspaper. It usually had 3 pages of Packers coverage (Even in March) and 2 pages of MLB/NBA a page of box-scores/standings, and maybe quarter page writeups on things like college football/basketball, boxing, golf, or the olympics or whatever. Ditto for the 30 minute Sportscenter: FOOTBALL BASEBALL BASKETBALL HOCKEY and maybe a few seconds for something huge like the indy 5, the masters or the world cup (HA! JUST KIDDING!)
If anything, the internet has allowed me to follow varieties of sports like soccer, college baseball, and golf that I would have had ABSOLUTELY NO WAY of following in 1995 unless I subscribed toa specialty magazine like Golf Digest or Soccer Mild-Enthusiast.
In other words: Sir, I disagree
oh, and: "baseball has made an absolute joke of itself in recent years"?
ReplyDeletefuck right off.
If anything the idea that baseball is any more flawed in recent years than the NFL (drugs and crime run rampant, rules are changed to kowtow to fans' base instincts for MORE PASSING MORE SCORING MORE PWETTY COLORS) and the NBA (David Stern is an ar-tard) is a manufacturing of the current media portrayal of the leagues that
"THE NFL ALWAYS SELLS OUT AND THERE IS PARITY THEREFORE IT HAS NO PROBLEMS"
and
"THE NBA IS ON ITS WAY BACK THIS IS THE YEAR IT BECOMES GREAT AGAIN. NO WAIT, THIS IS THE YEAR. NO WAIT THIS IS THE YEAR."
Baseball has had a whole lot of problems (Steroids was a debacle, as is interleague play) but to say it has made an absolute joke just shows how clueless and entrenched in the media machine this author is
at least IN MY OPINION!
Gib totally hit the part of the article which I thought made me the angriest. The writer spent the entire time making one argument, then acknowledges that he might be wrong, but then Jemele Hill's it by making false arguments against them.
ReplyDeleteThe fact he is a totally lazy researcher doesn't help much either. It jsut weakens his premise. The entire Henin section was ridiculous. Every sports site, every sports radio, ever regular news program, covered her retirement. The site he goes to...Deadspin. Not ESPN, Fox, Sports Illustrated, or some serious news site, but Deadspin, which is pretty much a link site. Yeah, he really tries hard to find his sports news....
So he starts with a title criticizing Americans for only liking football, baseball, and basketball, then admits that "smaller sports" like MMA and NASCAR are also popular?
ReplyDeleteDumbass.
BTW mr retarded writer, do you know where else you could have read about Jusine Henin retiring? That's right... ESPN! They had coverage of it on their SportsCenter show, as well as on the web site.
In any event, his article is one of those Andy Rooney moments, when someone notices something that isn't out of the ordinary (omg there are different cultures out there!!!) and assumes that he is the keeper of some grand secret.
Well now we know... elsewhere in the world people play different sports than they do in the USA. I'm staggered. Honestly.
Since you don't know how you feel about this article, could you tell us what you think about Simmons' Finals preview instead?
ReplyDeleteIt's easily the most passive-aggressive thing that the Sports Douche has ever written, at least for public viewing. There might be some letters he wrote to old girlfriends laying around somewhere, but who knows these things?
I agree with Chris W that today ESPN covers so much other bullshit than they used to, so his article makes no sense in that aspect. I think pretty much everyone knew Henin retired but it also helped that she was not American. If Andy Roddick had retired, it would have been a different story.
ReplyDeleteI found the Simmons article almost unreadable Jones. I tried a little but it just frustrated me for whatever reason. I may try to sludge through it when I am drunk or something.
look: I'll tell you how to feel Larry:
ReplyDeleteDAMN opposed. Damn damn damn opposed
ps:
ReplyDeleteI take it back. MLB did make a joke out of themselves the past few years.
If only they had all their shit figured out, like the NFL
http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=3427526
Chris W...the more I read the article (I just breezed through it the first time), the more I agree with most of what you say. My only issue with your first comment is about interleague play. I think that part of baseball has been unspectacular at worst. I personally enjoy being able to see some NL teams come through. I live near Cleveland...what they are putting on the field this year hardly qualifies as baseball, and it'll be nice to see some new faces in town (jay bruce, anyone?).
ReplyDeletejay bruce is a demigod
ReplyDeletei'm just sayin' is all
I picked him up on my fantasy team and let him "waste" a spot on my roster 2 weeks before he made his debut. Totally worth it so far.
ReplyDeletethat's true, Andy--interleague play does have its merits.
ReplyDeleteI guess I was just trying to be as hard on (heh heh) baseball as I possibly could and imagine what possibly could be called a "disaster" besides steroids....all I could think of was interleague and the wild card...
I don't like interleague, but I certainly don't hate it, especially compared to steroids or the myriad problems facing the NBA, NHL, and NFL
Here's something that should be pointed out.
ReplyDeleteLarry in g-chat, brought up a valid point that the reason he found this article thought-provoking is that he finds the author does make a valid point that sports like boxing and to a lesser extent tennis seem to be much less popular now and with the atmosphere of a "complete" sports source like espn.com or deadspin.com ignoring them, it magnifies the problem.
However, I'd point out that sports (with the exception of the two major sports--MLB and NFL...and Nascar as well, I suppose) tend to have a nebulous popularity based almost completely on
a.) the interesting "angles" present in their league
b.) how the league comports itself.
For instance, although, say, boxing is not nearly as popular as it was 15 years ago, golf is much more popular than it was 15 years ago.
There are a lot of reasons why this might be, but I think it boils down to
a.) Tiger Woods
and
b.) Mike Tyson
That may be oversimplifying it, but having a larger than life figure at the center of boxing made it appeal beyond those who have a scientific interest in the strategy/fundamentals of boxing.
15 years ago, the water-cooler world would talk about title fights because there was always the possibility that Tyson would either put on an all-time great fight or go batshit crazy.
You can see the downfall of boxing is from a lack of compelling figures when you look at how hard ESPN tried to make Floyd Mayweather into the "next" whatever in boxing. Unfortunately part of having a compelling figure is the idea that he is having to strive over excellent competition...and Mayweather doesn't seem to have much difficulty being champ.
You might say "well Tiger Woods is infinitely better than everyone" and I'd tend to agree--but what it boils down to is that golf is, aside from Tiger, approximately as good as it's always been. Without Tiger, Els, Mickelson, Singh--these are names we might be remembering as all-time greats in golf. Tiger is playing ungodly dominant golf over players who might be "hall of fame" golfers on their own merits.
This is kind of like MJ making Craig Ehlo his bitch.
I dunno...that's the way I feel about it...and I think it's pretty clear that a league's lack of popularity comes not from a magnified consciousness of ESPN defining the sports canon for us, but rather a sense of the players being compelling or lacking (boxing, golf, etc.) or lacking in competent management (NHL).
As a final note look at tennis. It's not quite as popular as it was 15 years ago, but it's almost as popular. Why? Well maybe a number of reasons, but let's look at the #1 rivalries
15 years ago: Sampras/ Agassi (Super-compelling, at least imo)
Now: Federer/Nadal (very compelling, but not 2 Americans, and not the personalities that Sampras and Agassi were)
That's all
:shrug:
aside:
ReplyDeleteWhy is bats' shit crazier than other animals' shit? Are bats just crazier than other animals because most of them stay up all night and like 2% of them drink cow blood?
guano is used in gunpowder!!!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteWhy did you have to torture me and mention Jordan over Ehlo? I just said I live near Cleveland.....
ReplyDeleteI think what bothers me the most about all this is that I actually do pay attention to most sports. I love boxing (btw...Pavlik/Lockett saturday night. It's not even a pay-per-view. Watch it.), and my grandfather used to be a very good tennis player, so I watch tennis every time I went to visit him and grandma. Oddly enough, about the only pro sports I don't watch are the NFL and the NBA. I still pay attention to them, but they hardly rivet me to the TV. Baseball is getting to be that way too. I'm tired of watching overpaid athletes whine about shit. At least in tennis/golf/bowling/boxing/MMA you have to earn your money by winning. Even the MLB is getting there for me. I mean, fuck...Andruw Jones is making $18M to completely blow at all things baseball, and shit like that bothers me.
OK, sorry...rant over
I only mentioned Ehlo to show him to be a baller!!!!
ReplyDeleteno no no, cw.
ReplyDeleteballers are from CINCY not CLEVELAND.
I had a friend who told me after a trip to Home Depot one day that Craig Ehlo was there. My buddy walked right past him and didn't know who it was until a small crowd gathered. He told me he didn't recognize him standing up straight instead of crumpled in a heap on the floor of the Richfield Coliseum.
ReplyDelete