ESPN

ESPN, July 20, 2008
Tonight, ESPN will broadcast its annual awards program, the ESPYs. The show is not a live event, rather the show was taped this past Wednesday. On Wednesday, there were not many live sport events that would pre-empt the broadcast if the network choose. Baseball was in the midst of its All-Star break, the NFL pre-season has not yet started, both the NBA and NHL regular and post seasons had finished. The only real live sports that occurred on Wednesday were NBA rookie league games in Orlando and Las Vegas, Major League Soccer, and the WNBA. None of those leagues would have events that would gain better ratings than the ESPYs.
Why would ESPN give up a live broadcast of its award show? Were they worried that host Justin Timberlake would pull “incident” like he did at the Super Bowl with Janet Jackson? If this was a concern, isn’t that more an indictment of the ESPY producer and ESPN itself in terms of it choice of hosts? Were they concerned that there might be an inappropriate word spoken on air? That’s why they have a 10 second delay in the broadcast. Or did they just assume that their own awards show wasn’t all that important to show live? It probably has to do with the fact that they think they would get better ratings on Sunday as opposed to Wednesday.
However, tonight the broadcast will go against a new episode of HBO’s Generation Kill, NBC’s Dateline, FOX’s Family Guy, ABC’s, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, and CBS’s Cold Case. Also, what happens if ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball game between the Boston Red Sox and the California Angels goes into extra innings and pushes back the start of the ESPY’s? There seem to be too many reasons not to have the show air tonight, but I guess that is why I am not running the network. But they will nto get me to watch the show tonight, instead I’ll be watching HBO…

Another rather interesting episode took place yesterday. Michelle Wei, the “next great hype” of Nike was disqualified from the State Farm Classic in Springfield, IL for failing to sign her score card following Friday’s round. Wie played Saturday’s round while the LPGA determined her fate.. The problem for Wie is that she was playing well and in fact was leading the tournament for part of Saturday. She finished the round only one shot behind the leader. Since she has never won a tournament, yet Nike and the LPGA forced her alleged greatness down our throats, it is too bad that she screwed something so basic up. A lot has been made of Wie’s career path. She has tried to play on the men’s tour and skipped the traditional method of preparation in terms of junior golf and college golf. Other young players such as Morgan Tressell and Paula Creemer took a more traditional course and have won on the LPGA tour and seem to be much more competitive golfers. A lot is typically made about signing an incorrect scorecard, but I have never heard of a problem for not signing the scorecard. One would think that this simple thing would never be overlooked, but I guess that would be a mistake. Someone with so much hype has seemed to fade into oblivion sooner than expected without ever winning anything other than a load of cash from Nike. She is not the best young golfer in the world, nor event the best young female golfer in the world. It's too bad that so much was expected from someone who doesn't seem to deliver. I just wish Nike, the LPGA tour, and ESPN would have paid more attention to some of the other young golfers that were actually winning.