I would tune in: McEnroe is serious about doing more sports talk radio, making documentaries

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There are a few TV sports analysts where if they are on the call, I will stop and listen. John McEnroe is on my list.

McEnroe remains one of the true unique personalities on the air. Even though I am not a huge tennis fan, I’m always interested in what he has to say.

The good news is that McEnroe wants to talk more, and an other subjects besides tennis. His new deal with ESPN calls for him to make regular appearances on ESPN2’s Olbermann and on ESPN Radio’s Mike & Mike. In addition, he also will also be heard on ESPN Radio New York (98.7 FM).

McEnroe, though, sounds as if he wants an even greater platform, perhaps even his own sports talk radio show. Alex Silverman of Sports Business Daily writes:

John McEnroe last month agreed to expand his on-air role at ESPN, and the tennis great said he would be interested in pursuing sports radio in a greater capacity going forward. “There’s a looseness to radio that I like,” McEnroe said last week prior to the Powershares Series Champions Cup in Charlotte. “I’m not going to be pontificating on what Michael Jordan should do here in Charlotte to make their team better, but it’s nice to sort of talk about a little bit maybe and just have fun with it. I think people see hopefully that I maybe have a decent personality and it’s sort of about staying involved in things that I love, sports specifically.”

McEnroe also said he interested in doing an ESPN 30 for 30 film.

He credited his experience as one of the main subjects of HBO’s “McEnroe/Borg: Fire & Ice” for piquing his interest in the sports documentary genre. Though he does not yet have any specific plans for a film, McEnroe is excited about the possibility. “I think that’s a great platform that I would be proud to be part of. I suspect that when I give that some time, it shouldn’t be that difficult to find interesting things.”

More McEnroe sounds good to me.

 

Why players want their cut: 2013 NCAA tournament generated $1.15 billion in ad revenue for CBS, Turner

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When you see dollars in the billions, it is hard to argue that the players don’t deserve more than a few trinkets and meal money from the NCAA tournament.

This item caught my attention via Collegeathleticsclips.com. According to Kantar Media, a research firm, the 2013 NCAA tournament ad revenues generated $1.15 billion for CBS and Turner Sports.

Kantar writes:

Over the past decade (2004-2013), the NCAA men’s basketball tournament has triggered more than $6.88 billion of national TV ad spending from 269 different marketers. Ad revenue in 2013 was $1.15 billion, up 3.8 percent from the prior year.

Take a moment to think about those numbers: $1.15 billion in 2013 and $6.88 billion since 2004. Yet not one dime for the players.

In fact, the NCAAs pull in more TV ad revenue than any postseason in sports, including the NFL, which obviously has far fewer games.  It has more than doubled since 2004.

CBS and Turner need to generate that kind of money to offset its current 14-year, $10.8 billion deal with the NCAA. Then there also are the productions costs of airing all those games.

Clearly, though, it is a good deal on many levels for CBS and Turner. They own the attention of sports fans for three weeks.

The tournament also is good business for the companies and advertising firms. According to Kantar, General Motors, at $80 million, was the top NCAA advertiser last year.

Obviously, it works out well for the NCAA, coaches and administrators. They all have seen their salaries rise considerably thanks in part to the tournament.

As for the players? It’s still about the thrill of competition, right?

 

 

Grant Hill eying more broadcast opportunities: Will work as studio analyst during the tournament

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Neil Best of Newsday talked to Grant Hill about his broadcast aspirations.

Hill is a partner in a private equity fund, but he would like to continue exploring broadcasting as a second career.

“You stay around the game and get the chance to use the knowledge and information you have accumulated,” he said. “But it is difficult, or at least more difficult than I envisioned.”

Given his big name, if he excels, the opportunities will be there for the former Dukie.

 

CBSSports.com’s Doyel: First Four is ‘a blatant money grab’

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CBSSports.com’s Gregg Doyel does a huge takedown of last night’s so-called “First Four” play-in games in Dayton.

I only watched for a few minutes. Since I once was dubbed “the conscience of college football,” I immediately thought of how the “First Four” games make even more of a mockery of the notion of academics and athletics. The winning teams miss an entire week of school with the extra game and travel. Not that anyone cares.

Doyel was on hand in Dayton. He made it seem as if he had the arena to himself. He writes:

For Mount St. Mary’s, the NCAA Tournament started in a half-empty gym and ended in a completely empty locker room. While 60 other teams will start the NCAA Tournamenton Thursday or Friday in energy-filled venues featuring big-name schools and their frenzied fans, Mount St. Mary’s was one of eight teams sent to the play-in tournament, also known as the First Four, where everything is smaller: the arena, the crowd, the energy, the television network, the media throng.

Eight minutes after Mount St. Mary’s season ended Tuesday night, a 71-64 loss to Albany, the media throng was standing outside the Mountaineers’ locker room. And the media throng was one person. Me. Three tournament officials were standing outside the door with me. Why?

“Crowd control,” said one of them, a nice man named Chris. He was smiling, and then he was playfully spinning like a rebounder, blocking me out.

Later, Doyel pointed out the obvious.

But there’s only so much lipstick anyone can put on this pig, this blatant money grab by the power conferences for a few more slices of this $10.8 billion pie. The power and greed waters down the bracket, but that’s not my problem. Look, I’d love to see the field grow to 128. Or 256. The size of the field isn’t the problem. What happened Tuesday night to Mount St. Mary’s — and what will happen Wednesday night to Cal Poly or Texas Southern — is the problem.

But this is nearly a victimless crime. Who weeps for Mount St. Mary’s? Almost nobody. This is me, shouting down an empty well. Hello-o-o-o-o. Can you hear me-e-e-e-e?

Doyel concludes:

What are the players at Mount St. Mary’s going to tell their grandkids? About the time they played Albany in Dayton on March 18, 2014, the day they lost the chance to play in the actual NCAA Tournament?

Yeah, actually, that is the story they’ll tell. And they can mention the slogan:

The First Four — a play-in game, and an insult.

Yet here’s the bottom line. Turner Sports says the North Carolina State-Xaiver game averaged a 1.2 rating on truTV, the highest ever for a First Four.

If people tune in, the First Four will live on.

Q/A with Greg Anthony: Working first NCAA tournament as CBS lead analyst while on baby watch

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It turns out Jim Nantz isn’t the only CBS announcer with baby issues this month. His new college basketball partner, Greg Anthony, has a little girl on the way.

Anthony, though, wasn’t able to time things as well as his the Nantz family; Courtney gave birth to a girl on Saturday. Anthony’s wife, Chere, is due with the couple’s fourth child on March 28, the day of the Sweet 16 games.

“It has added some anxiety,” Anthony said.  “I want everyone to be healthy. But by the same token, I want to be there (for the birth of the baby) and not have to miss any NCAA assignments. We’ll have to play it by ear.”

This is a big opportunity for Anthony. He will be working his first NCAA tournament and Final Four as CBS’ new No. 1 college basketball analyst. He is switching places with Clark Kellogg, who was moved to the studio during the tournament.

The former UNLV star knows the highs and lows of the NCAAs. He played on one of the most dominant teams of all time in winning the 1990 title. Yet he still suffers from the sting of the undefeated Runnin’ Rebel being upset by Duke in the 1991 Final Four.

Here is my Q/A with Anthony.

How do you feel about this opportunity?

It’s an awesome honor. I had the opportunity to be in the shoes of those players, both win and lose. In some ways, I’m fortunate to have had all of those experiences. I know what disappointment feels like. I know the misery of losing isn’t quite the same as the ecstasy of winning.

Do you still think about that loss to Duke?

Yes, even more when you get to this time of year. Those memories come to the forefront. There is more conversation about it. We were fortunate in that we already had won a national title.

Now I use those experiences to talk about the pressure these young men are feeling in the Final Four.

How do you explain that pressure?

It’s interesting. You often don’t appreciate the magnitude of the moment when you’re a college player. Oh, you know it’s big and that it is for the national championship. But you don’t realize for years to come that it’s going to be part of history. How your career is going to be defined.

Maybe it’s good to be a little naive in that way. You don’t allow the pressure to overcome you.

You only have worked two games with Nantz. How difficult will it be to develop chemistry on the fly during the tournament?

There is a challenge with that. Jim and I stay in contact all the time. We’re always talking about the game.

The ultimate for us is to win. The way to win is that you have to play with your teammates. It’s about everyone in our production crew. Spending time together. Going out for dinners. All those bonding moments definitely help when you face the moment of truth (during a telecast).

What will be your approach in analyzing the games?

There’s a lot of responsibility when you’re in that chair. The focus for me is about the games and the stories. I equate March Madness to the Olympics. The vast majority of people don’t watch college basketball until the tournament. The same as the OIympics.

When you tell the stories, it compels people to care about these players. You tell how they got there. They are someone’s brother or son. People can relate to that.

What about criticism? Is there a balance you have to strike in being critical and yet knowing that you’re not talking about seasoned NBA veterans?

That’s a great point. You can be compassionate even when you’re critical. I don’t go into any game expecting perfection. Mistakes are part of it. As long as you don’t make it personal, you’ll be fine.

As a player, nobody had to tell me I screwed up. I knew. I also say some mistakes are forced. The other team has players on scholarship too. I think it is important to explain the reason behind the mistake.

Let’s not forget these are young kids. When Chris Webber called the timeout, he was a young kid. Young kids make mistakes. That’s part of the tournament.

You playing on great and heavily favored UNLV teams. What’s better, having dominating teams or a wide-open tournament like we have this year?

This is better. When you have parity, it creates so much more excitement. The difference between the elite teams and everyone else has shrunk. There are No. 4 seeds that people like better than No. 1 seeds this year.

I always felt there were 8 to 10 teams who could win the title and a handful more could get to the Final Four. Now you can double that. Nobody knows what’s going to happen. That’s beautiful for the game.

 

 

 

 

Podcasts with your truly: Talking Called Shot book with Sports-Casters; Fowler, Reilly moves

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Many thanks to Steve Bennett from Sports-Casters for doing an extended interview on his podcast about my book, Babe Ruth’s Called Shot: The Myth and Mystery Behind Baseball’s Greatest Home Run.

Steve writes on his site:

Ed Sherman is making his fifth appearance on the podcast. Sherman stops by to chat about his new book, Babe Ruth’s Called Shot: The Myth and Mystery of Baseball’s Greatest Home Run. Sherman’s book was our book club book of the month for February and even into March for a couple of extra weeks. Sherman explains why he decided to write a book about this specific topic, talks about the challenge of writing about a story that happened 80 years ago, and describes reviewing the films that exist about the historic event. Sherman wouldn’t tip his hand as to what conclusion he has come to after writing the book but talks about the opinions of Tom Verducci, Keith Olbermann and Bob Costas.

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Meanwhile, on my weekly sports media podcast for SportingNews.com, Rayven Tirado and I discussed Chris Fowler’s move to ESPN’s lead play-by-play voice for college football and Rick Reilly’s decision to give up his ESPN.com column.

 

New look for Awful Announcing; Its Mt. Rushmore is gone

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Hey, just because I signed on as a contributor didn’t mean you had to redecorate the entire house.

Oh, it wasn’t because of me? Never mind.

Awful Announcing actually debuted a new look today. And you’ll notice one thing that is missing.

Managing Editor Matt Yoder writes:

Immediately, you probably noticed one big change.  Our Mount Rushmore has gone the way of Tim McCarver and retired… at least until it resurfaces on a Fox Sports regional network.  The Mount Rushmore concept has been run so far into the ground in the sports world over the last month that we no longer felt comfortable prominently displaying it on our website.  To combine two overused idioms, Mount Rushmore jumped the shark.  Thanks, LeBron James.

Of course there is a real reason why you no longer see Mount Rushmore and why we have a fancy new slogan as well.  Since 2011, my goal with Awful Announcing as an editor of this site was to expand one of the pillars of the sports blogosphere to new horizons.  Brian Powell’s original version of Awful Announcing was one of the first sports blogs to matter and before I was a writer, AA 1.0 was one of my favorite websites to visit as a reader.  Since moving to Bloguin, AA 2.0 has looked to build upon that and not just “put announcers on notice” but cover the entire industry in an insightful, fair, and hopefully sometimes humorous way.  Whether this be through analysis, news, podcasts, social media, or any other medium, our goal is to provide the best coverage of the sports media every day.  Thankfully, the growth of this website over the last few years and your readership has validated that decision.  AA has set several traffic records over the last year and continues to reach new heights, so we thank all of you for your continued support.

I agree. Like the new look.

Basketball writers president: ‘We need SIDs to stand up and fight for us’ during NCAA tournament

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Last year, I wrote about how the NCAA has pushed college basketball writers into the rafters for press seating during the tournament. U.S. Basketball Writers Association  president Kirk Wessler of the Peoria Journal Star notes this picture was the media view at one site last year.

Up close to the back of someone’s head.

In a column on the USBWA site, Wessler calls upon college SIDs to push the NCAA to provide better arena accommodations to the media. He writes:

So this is a challenge to our members who are SIDs. The basketball writers of the USBWA need you to stand up and fight for us. The primary goal of the USBWA has been simply stated since its founding in 1956: “To serve the interests of journalists who cover college basketball.” The flat truth is these ridiculous seating arrangements don’t do that.

Look, we get it. Your first obligation is to the university that pays your salary. We understand (even if we lament) the pressures to create more “premium” seating for fans who can maximize revenues. And the best atmosphere is one with a large and lively student section.

But SIDs also are liaisons between the media and the teams. That means advocating for reasonable working conditions, which include unobstructed views of the live action on the court.

All of you know this. Some of you might feel powerless to stand up to your bosses, but you’re not. You don’t have to wage that battle alone. As a member of this organization, you have our support. Ask for it. Please.

Seems to be a reasonable request. However, not sure that much will be done here by the SIDs. As Wessler noted, they ultimately answer to the schools, not the media.

 

Rick Reilly: An appreciation for Hall of Fame writing career

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My latest column for the National Sports Journalism Center at Indiana is on Rick Reilly, one helluva writer.

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Last week, Rick Reilly announced that he is giving up his ESPN.com column at the end of June. He is going to be exclusively a TV guy now, filing reports for the network’s coverage of Monday Night Football and SportsCenter.

It truly is the end of an era if he is indeed closing out his writing career. Let’s just look at what is on the back of his so-called baseball card.

–11-time National Sportswriter of the Year.

–2009 Damon Runyon Award for Outstanding Contributions to Journalism. Previous winners have included Jimmy Breslin, Tim Russert, Bob Costas, Mike Royko, George Will, Ted Turner and Tom Brokaw, among others. Not bad company there.

–23-year career at Sports Illustrated, including 10 years as the back-page columnist.

–Author of 10 books, several of which were bestsellers.

–And coming this June, Reilly will be inducted into the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association Hall of Fame. That begs the question: What took so long?

Reilly easily is the most read sportswriter of his generation, given his platforms at Sports Illustrated and ESPN. Is he best? He definitely is in the team picture.

Often, Reilly’s is so good, it almost is painful for sportswriters like me to read him. Even on my best day, I’ll never get within 10 shots of Reilly on the leaderboard.

Reilly plays to another level with his one-liners. He has the rare ability to turn phrases that only could come from his imagination.

On golf, he once wrote: “Golf is the cruelest game, because eventually it will drag you out in front of the school take your lunch money and slap you around.”

Reilly describing Tom Brady: “Six-four with a chin you can crack coconuts on. Eyes greener than the 13th at Augusta. And one of those oh-darn-I-forgot-to-shave-and-now-I-look-like-a-cologne-ad beards. But it’s not his heroic arm or his lifeguard body or his Crest smile that makes women smooth their skirts and men curse their parents. It’s that he seems to see himself as a tall Milhouse.”

I mean, I won’t even try to come up with a one-liner for those. I’d just look silly.

Yet Reilly’s columns always have been about more than just one-liners. He also tells stories about the human condition in sports, pieces that invoke deep emotion. He did it again a couple weeks ago with a column on Jim Kelly, who is battling cancer.

Reilly writes: “Next time you’re running about two quarts low on hope, or feel like you’re on the wrong end of God’s Whac-A-Mole game, think of Jim Kelly and be glad you’re not him.

“Jim Kelly is sport’s Job. If it’s raining anywhere, it’s raining on Jim Kelly. He’s as unlucky as a one-legged dog.”

Reilly, though, goes on to write that Kelly somehow is trying to maintain a positive attitude despite all the obstacles he has endured in his life. It is a moving piece. These are the kind of columns that you have come to expect, and will miss, from Reilly.

I know there are people who will disagree with my assessment here. If anything, Reilly became a victim of his own success. His big name made him a target for bloggers. They quickly learned that tearing him down equated to major page views. Suddenly, it became open season on Reilly.

It has felt like death by a thousand paper cuts to Reilly. Surely, it has been painful for him. If his critics contributed to him giving up his column, well, that’s just sad.

I have been careful to write in the present tense here. It’s not as if Reilly died or is retiring. He’s still going to be writing for TV. Now instead of reading his words, you will be listening to them.

Yet it won’t be the same. People in the sportswriting fraternity, either long-time colleagues or those who grew up reading him, know his impact. It is profound.

When Reilly made his announcement, award-winning Yahoo! Sports columnist Pat Forde said in a tweet: “My first sports writing role model. Still have the handwritten note he sent me in college critiquing my stuff.”

Reilly’s hero, Jim Murray, once said, “Writing a column is like riding a tiger. You don’t want to stay on, but you don’t want to get off either.”

Reilly has decided to get off the tiger now. On his behalf of all his readers, thanks for taking us on one helluva ride.

 

 

FiveThirtyEight: Nate Silver’s new site launches today; What is behind fox logo?

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Nate Silver’s long awaited debut of FiveThirtyEight happens this afternoon. It’s no coincidence.

Silver’s site will be crunching the numbers for the NCAA basketball tournament. Today is the one day of the year when everyone really cares about those numbers.

The site is a huge initiative for Silver and ESPN. His unique analytics will cover a broad spectrum from politics to entertainment to weather. Sports will account for about 30 percent of the content.

Silver explained his vision for FiveThirtyEight in an interview with Joe Coscarelli of New York Magazine. He talks about the fox logo.

Can you explain the mythology behind the new fox logo?
The fox logo comes from a quote which was originally attributable to an obscure Greek poet: “The hedgehog knows one big thing and the fox knows many little things.” The idea being that we’re a lot of scrappy little nerds and we have different data-driven — I hate data-driven as a term — but data journalism takes on a lot of different forms for us. Often, yeah, it does mean numbers and statistics as applied to the news, but it also means data visualization, reporting on data that is both numerate and literate; down the road, it came mean investigative journalism. It can mean building models and forecasts and programs. At the same time, it’s still data journalism. It’s not enough just to be smart. There’s a particular series of methods and a way of looking at the world. 

Plenty of pundits have really high IQs, but they don’t have any discipline in how they look at the world, and so it leads to a lot of bullshit, basically. We think about our philosophy for when we choose to run with a story or when we don’t. We talk about avoiding “smart takes,” quote-unquote. This is data journalism, capital-D. Within that, we take a foxlike approach to what data means. It’s not just numbers, but numbers are a big part of this. We think that’s a weakness of conventional journalism, that you have beautiful English language skills and fewer math skills, and we hope to rectify that balance a little bit.

And…

Did Bill Simmons of Grantland, which is also run independently under the massive ESPN umbrella, give you any advice about turning from an individual writer to more of a manager?
There are all these quote-unquote personal-brand sites and Grantland is the one that was ahead of the pack in terms of having two or three years under its belt. We learned a lot from them. One thing we learned is that it’s definitely possible to launch too soon.

He was realistic about the fact that for the first six months or a year, there’s no way around the fact that a lot of your time is going to be taken up with management tasks. I realized that before signing the deal with ESPN. That’s something I was willing to do — kind of eager to do in the sense that it’s something new for me and that makes it kind of challenging and fun.

At ESPN Front Row, Anna Livia Coelho did a Q/A with managing editor Mike Wilson. She asked about the sports aspect of the site.

Nate Silver became well-known for his political coverage, and ESPN is well-known for its sports coverage. So how will the new FiveThirtyEight build a bridge between the two?
We’ll build the bridge out of numbers. Politics and sports and our other areas of focus – science, economics and lifestyle – are data-rich areas. Just about everything in our lives today can be measured. We’ll use data to tell stories about the world.

Will the new FiveThirtyEight feature the same amount of political coverage as before?
Politics will always be a huge story for us, particularly in election years.

What are some of the stories we should expect to see in the next coming weeks?
Some snapshots for you: At this point in the race, Hillary Clinton has a better chance of becoming president than anyone in history. . . This winter wasn’t the worst by any single measure, but it was awful by a whole bunch of measures. . . “Romeo and Juliet” has a misleading title. . . Millions have left the workforce and may never come back. . . Baseball managers generally don’t make much difference in their teams’ performance.

Stay tuned for more.