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
Originally posted by Paul Smith
...
What we discussed was how you would package and market such a feature, he made it clear that he felt there would be no problems getting someone from Fox or ESPN on board if the show focused on some of the incredible things that people such as Laura Val, Rich Abrahams, Jim McConica, etc. etc are doing. The key would be making it more of a general human interest story and not showing endless hours (seconds?) of actually racing.
The challenge for something like this is finacing, something that our sport has very little of.
...
1) Finance-wise, I see Emmett and Leonard's posts addressing cheap production of a TV program about swimming;
input money flowing in between USMS, USS Swimming, USOC is also conceivable.
2) Content-wise, I would put the "...human interest story..." in the backgroung of showing the thrill and pain of racing, not on the foreground.
The reason for that, is to educate the public on racing and the process of bettering oneself through fitness effort.
Examples of lack of education on fitness racing are when last Saturday, The San Diego Union Tribune newspaper reported that an ESPN commentator stated that marathon runners are idiots, when ESPN and NBC reported in 2000 the swimming in NCAA and the US Olympic Trials with a few swimming strokes of some winners and lenghty generic syrupy stories, but no sport thrilling races, so the public still doesn't get it about the sport.
Originally posted by Paul Smith
...
That's why my interest is not in promoting Masters, rather I would like to see more cooperation between USS, FINA, USOC, etc. in builing "the sport". Our challenges are not how many people can masters nationals support, our challenge is whether swimming can survive at the age group, high school, college, Olympic levels.
Alternative media like www.swiminfo.com reported yesterday that USMS swimmer Paul Carter (US), age 45, swam 100 meter fly Long Course in 56.4x, next to news from the European Championships and the Common Wealth Games.
It's a small step in intermingling USMS, USOC and US Swimming, and it needs expanding into more co-operation, including financial.
Originally posted by Paul Smith
...
What we discussed was how you would package and market such a feature, he made it clear that he felt there would be no problems getting someone from Fox or ESPN on board if the show focused on some of the incredible things that people such as Laura Val, Rich Abrahams, Jim McConica, etc. etc are doing. The key would be making it more of a general human interest story and not showing endless hours (seconds?) of actually racing.
The challenge for something like this is finacing, something that our sport has very little of.
...
1) Finance-wise, I see Emmett and Leonard's posts addressing cheap production of a TV program about swimming;
input money flowing in between USMS, USS Swimming, USOC is also conceivable.
2) Content-wise, I would put the "...human interest story..." in the backgroung of showing the thrill and pain of racing, not on the foreground.
The reason for that, is to educate the public on racing and the process of bettering oneself through fitness effort.
Examples of lack of education on fitness racing are when last Saturday, The San Diego Union Tribune newspaper reported that an ESPN commentator stated that marathon runners are idiots, when ESPN and NBC reported in 2000 the swimming in NCAA and the US Olympic Trials with a few swimming strokes of some winners and lenghty generic syrupy stories, but no sport thrilling races, so the public still doesn't get it about the sport.
Originally posted by Paul Smith
...
That's why my interest is not in promoting Masters, rather I would like to see more cooperation between USS, FINA, USOC, etc. in builing "the sport". Our challenges are not how many people can masters nationals support, our challenge is whether swimming can survive at the age group, high school, college, Olympic levels.
Alternative media like www.swiminfo.com reported yesterday that USMS swimmer Paul Carter (US), age 45, swam 100 meter fly Long Course in 56.4x, next to news from the European Championships and the Common Wealth Games.
It's a small step in intermingling USMS, USOC and US Swimming, and it needs expanding into more co-operation, including financial.
