Quick, name a sport, any sport.
Tennis? Good.
Yup, ESPN does whatever it takes — spends a ton of money, too — to wreck tennis, too.
What ESPN is again doing to the Australian Open is right out of the ESPN, E for Excess, manual that gives instructions on how to drown every event it touches.
To think that here in the States one can sit down to enjoy a morning of live tennis being played in a major simply is too much to ask of ESPN.
First, like “Monday Night Football,” every televised match must undergo an on-site panel preview spoken by at least four of ESPN’s rotating experts. Thus, before the match has even begun, it has been beaten to death.
Next, as the match is played, no fewer than three more ESPN voices are heard over it. ESPN assigns at least seven people to report on a match played by two people. And all seven have microphones!
The in-match commentary, while often helpful at the start, is so relentless that one eventually can’t distinguish words from the sound of a leaf-blower. For crying out loud, Wednesday Venus Williams hit a drop shot into the net — as self-evident as televised tennis gets — and her game was then examined like a school budget.
And it all begins to sound like Simon Says from Melbourne. “She should do this, do that, do this. He should try that, try this, try that.”
But ESPN knows no other way to do things than to over-do things. The ESPN shot-callers figure we tune to ESPN because we love ESPN, when we tune to ESPN because — at increasing monthly costs to us — it holds sports hostage.
Ex-coaches fumble strategy as commentators
Geez, Fox’s Brian Billick made such a mess of the end of Sunday’s Seahawks-Falcons — including a suggestion Seattle try a field goal then an on-sides kick while down six, under a minute left — that one can understand why NFL head coaches need 10, 12 assistants.
But confused ex-head coaches at the ends of games were in this week. On ESPN2, Bobby Knight, with 7.6 seconds left in Notre Dame-St. John’s, timeout in a two-point game, spoke extensive strategy as if Notre Dame would in-bound. But it was St. John’s ball.
By the way, for all the “name” courtside analysts TV thrown at us, if you could choose one to find yourself seated beside at a game, I’d suggest Jim Spanarkel. But that’s only if you’re in the mood to hear basketball spoken sensibly, applicably and without forced shtick.
* No story gets past ESPN. First it landed the scoop Chip Kelly won’t be leaving Oregon to coach in the NFL. Next, it landed the scoop — credited to ESPN’s Chris Mortensen — Kelly will leave Oregon to coach the Eagles.
* Lots of folks expect Ray Lewis to join ESPN as soon as his season is over. To make room, ESPN will have to fire someone for social insensitivity.
* Gotta love ex-Rutgers star and now frequently arrested Titans’ WR Kenny Britt. He is in someone’s Jersey City residence early Sunday morning when there’s a reported shooting and a stabbing. The cops claim Britt drove a victim to the hospital then disappeared. Britt claims he has cooperated with the police. The police respond, “Oh, no, he hasn’t.”
* Good news. No, make that great news.
CBS has announced for the Super Bowl — and I kid you not — it is “deploying six Heyeper Zoom high-frame-rate, 4K replay and zoom cameras” that use “For-A-Corps FT-One, 4K cameras, equipped with Fujinon lenses and Evertz Corp.’s DreamCatcher record servers.”
Furthermore, the above will deliver “300-500 frames per second (normal 60 FPS)” plus, “3840 by 2160 pixel images totaling over 8 million pixels.”
Disclaimer: In some cases, the Heyeper Zoom, when taken with Fujinon in conjunction with the Evertz DreamCatcher in rapid FPS, has caused vomiting, sleeplessness, angry bowel syndrome and perforated pickled pixels. Before viewing the Super Bowl, consult your physician.
‘Center Ice’ bragging unwarranted
It’s amazing how many sports enterprises and sales pitches arrive attached to the notion we’re all a bunch of morons.
The NHL’s “Center Ice” digital cable package carrying out-of-market telecasts will, with the lockout ended, be resumed. And for the regular-season price of $50, which, according to a boast in a press release this week, is “the lowest price ever.”
Hooray! The NHL and its pay-TV partners are selling a half-season for less than it would sell a full season! Gee, thanks, fellas!
* Mayockian Analysis of the Week: CBS sideliner Steve Tasker, during Texans-Patriots, reported star TE Rob Gronkowski was taken to the Pats’ locker room and he’s “physically compromised.” (I think that means that he’s hurt.)
* Reader D. Ogborne is fascinated by Mike Francesa’s claim Navy’s Roger Staubach is the greatest college football player he ever saw, given Francesa was 10 when Staubach’s college ball ended. Ogborne: “I always pegged 9 or 10 as a good age to really evaluate football, as opposed to buying a helmet with ice cream in it.”
* MSG’s “Beginnings” this week scored big, focusing on Ranger Brian Boyle, the biggest of 13 brothers and sisters raised in Hingham, Mass.
* The Javon Belcher autopsy report was confusing. If you’re over the legislated minimum, what’s the difference between “legally drunk” and “illegally drunk”? And does anyone actually have the flu, or just “flu-like symptoms”?
* What good is Mel Kiper Jr.’s (or anyone else’s) mock NFL draft when Russell Wilson — how easy is he to love? — is a third-round pick?
* The Washington Post has twice photographed Alex Ovechkin’s car parked illegally at the Caps’ practice rink. Doesn’t help Ovechkin, who wears No. 8, that his license plate reads “AO GR8.”
* Lots of Jets jokes out there, including: What do the Jets and a possum have in common? A: Both play dead at home and get killed on the road. And what do the Jets and Billy Graham have in common? A: Both can make 70,000 people rise and holler, “Jesus Christ!”
* Another nutty week. Anyone know where I can get a bereavement card for a guy’s imaginary girlfriend?