The award for the most ridiculous, self-absorbed, overzealous all sports entertainment network in the world goes to...
ESPN, for the 10th year running.
They have once again proven that outside the 4 major sports, Tiger Woods, and the Williams sisters, you're really not much of an athlete. Unless you count token consideration of Cael Sanderson and -ahem- Sarah Hughes (don't even get me started on figure skating).
No offense to college athlete of the year Sue Bird (UConn BB) but a certain swimmer from Cal who set at least 6 AR and 1 WR over the short course season would have had my vote.
Anyone else? Natalie Coughlin, female college athlete of the year as awarded by the USMS discussion crew?
-RM
Parents
Former Member
Emmett,
You have greater faith in the impartiality of the market. (But your accomplishment making swim coaching pay as a capitalist enterprise is impressive.) I happen to think the dice are loaded in this game, but the point I eventually stumbled into making was "so, what?" Let's ask ourselves what we want to do as an organization, then try to generate coverage to meet that goal. I'm not sure I would want the organization to do the things it would have to do if maximum media exposure was the overarching goal. (Visions of these god-aweful "reality" TV shows, and humiliating, every man for himself game shows pop into my head. My feeling is we would have to turn ourselves into a WWF-style side show to get a significant number of people watching, for all the wrong reasons.)
I LIKE your idea of producing our own coverage of Nationals, and finding a way to broadcast it. Public access might not be where we want to start because it would be limited to the local viewing area. Then again, if we produce it, and ask our members in each little area to get it on their local access system... hm? This might work.
In the past, NE Masters got NPR's "Only a Game" to do a short piece on their meet. It was fine as far as it went, but it was 10 minutes at two different times on one weekend, then it disappeared into the vast collective unconscious.
Basically, I LIKE your ideas because they involve us producing the product ourselves, then finding a market for it. We control the content, rather than engaging in degrading "notice me" displays for a sports establishment that has already decided ahead of time what it wants to show anyway.
Matt
Emmett,
You have greater faith in the impartiality of the market. (But your accomplishment making swim coaching pay as a capitalist enterprise is impressive.) I happen to think the dice are loaded in this game, but the point I eventually stumbled into making was "so, what?" Let's ask ourselves what we want to do as an organization, then try to generate coverage to meet that goal. I'm not sure I would want the organization to do the things it would have to do if maximum media exposure was the overarching goal. (Visions of these god-aweful "reality" TV shows, and humiliating, every man for himself game shows pop into my head. My feeling is we would have to turn ourselves into a WWF-style side show to get a significant number of people watching, for all the wrong reasons.)
I LIKE your idea of producing our own coverage of Nationals, and finding a way to broadcast it. Public access might not be where we want to start because it would be limited to the local viewing area. Then again, if we produce it, and ask our members in each little area to get it on their local access system... hm? This might work.
In the past, NE Masters got NPR's "Only a Game" to do a short piece on their meet. It was fine as far as it went, but it was 10 minutes at two different times on one weekend, then it disappeared into the vast collective unconscious.
Basically, I LIKE your ideas because they involve us producing the product ourselves, then finding a market for it. We control the content, rather than engaging in degrading "notice me" displays for a sports establishment that has already decided ahead of time what it wants to show anyway.
Matt
