In case you want your New Year's party invitation rescinded...

Normally during the holiday season, you're supposed to send out Christmas cards to friends and people you know. Even though you may not enjoy doing this, it's at least a good, friendly gesture that people appreciate during the holidays.

But the times they are a changing, my friend.

ESPN has decided to add some flavor to an old holiday tradition, and by "add some flavor to", I mean "completely take a dump on."

Yes, there are now 8 stupid "Holiday Smack Cards" that you can send out to insult people during the Christmas holiday. Which is a great idea. Nothing says Christmas cheer like getting a holiday card that calls you a loser.

The e-cards also directly target the Yankees, Chicago Bears, and Notre Dame. The least original may be Grossman and Griese throwing "gift-wrapped" interceptions to defensive backs. It took a brilliant mind to come up with that. Probably the same brilliant mind that came up with the "Enjoy the Whatever Bowl loser!" insult. There is no comeback to that my friends.

Sometimes an idea is so bad, it's good. And other times, an idea is so bad, it should be buried 6-feet deep and never discussed again. This is one of the latter.

-WCK

Oregon/ASU Blackout???

UPDATE: For people wondering what's wrong with Dwyermaker and why he didn't just watch on FSN, well he couldn't, he doesn't get FSN. Here's the full answer from an email he sent me - So the game was on Fox Sports out here, which I actually do not get. What makes this more interesting and I'm surprised all the commenters did not note this is that in order to get the one FSN channel on DishNetwork in LA, it costs an extra $10 a month for just that one channel (which is complete BS). And I really don't watch FSN that often so I just never got it, and that's not a channel you expect to have to pay $10 a month for. So, I have to stand by the fact that ESPN should not be advertising that they will be showing a game in SoCal that a number of people do not receive without paying extra money for.

Okay,

I am not quite sure who is to blame for the Oregon/ASU blackout that was imposed on Oregon, Arizona, Southern California, and New Mexico. I do know that I spent about a half hour on the phone with Dish Network looking for someone to vent my rage against, but when I found out that ESPN/ABC Sports didn't even give them the signal I figured that this was a futile enterprise.

This tends to suggest that the blameworthy ones in this sad affair would be either ESPN/ABC Sports and/or the schools themselves. On ESPN's website they claim there are certain contracts in place involving ticket sales or other issues so that they are powerless to do anything about blacking out certain games. I feel certain that this is complete crap. I'm sure that in negotiating broadcasting contracts with different conferences and schools it is entirely possible to ensure that everyone who wants to can watch the game unless you are engaging in some BS negotiating tactics or by just being cheap.

The question for me is how anyone gains by blacking out a huge football game in three of the biggest markets for the game in the country. ESPN either is losing massive advertising revenue or pissing off their advertisers whose ads are not being seen by anywhere near as many people as would otherwise want to see it. Viewers such as myself are rightfully pissed because we can't watch a huge college football game that has been heavily advertised for the past week with no warning that the game would be blacked out. I would imagine that advertisers are mad too because the demographic that would be watching this game has strong purchasing power and they are not able to sell their products. Plus, ASU and Oregon are losing important exposure for potential recruits and lucrative television revenue in their markets.

So, what the $%@$!!!? I know there are bigger problems in the world, but when I'm kicking back on a Saturday i'm serious about my entertainment and don't like being misled by advertising. I did write a comment to ESPN expressing my displeasure and have to say I love the classy touch on ESPN's comment area that limits you to 500 characters. Nothing says that ESPN cares about their customers as much as making sure you don't tell them too much about what they are doing wrong or actually using their ridiculous budget and broadcasting power to ensure that people actually get the product they advertise. If this were a restaurant or a company making power tools and you just never got the food you paid for or the wrench you purchased never worked would that company stay in business for any length of time? Hell no. Somehow, I have a feeling that ESPN will not have much trouble bouncing back after alienating a significant percentage of their customer-base.

Something definitely needs to be changed within sports broadcasting so that there is more accountability for networks advertising games and then blacking them out without warning. Hey, maybe everyone can just figure out how to make sure that everyone who wants to watch sports events can watch teams that want to be watched so that advertisers who want to pay for air time can do so and networks can make the money that I'm sure they and their shareholders want.

-Dwyermaker

ESPN is covering a topless ping-pong tournament tonight?

I think most of us are familiar with the fact that ESPN is owned by Disney. That naturally means that ESPN tends to tow the line of being relatively "family-oriented" and doesn't exactly push the envelope.

Well, that's what I thought, until I saw the poster above.

The Las Vegas based Sapphire Gentlemen's Club, which is the world's largest gentlemen's club, is hosting Ping Pong Palooza tonight, which is best described as a topless stripper competition where women face off in singles and doubles matches. As the poster says "Come watch the topless stripper competition."

So naturally I was surprised to see in the right hand corner of the poster an ESPN logo, you know, because ESPN doesn't usually cover stuff like this. Mickey tends not to approve of strip clubs. But if you look real close, it says "ESPN - Live on Air Remote During the Event." That term, "live on air remote" is a relatively familiar broadcast phrase that suggests ESPN will be there to broadcast or hype the event in some way.

You can also find the poster on Sapphire's home page, with the ESPN image and wording, so it's not photoshopped. Naturally you can't find anything on the internet about ESPN's role in this event other than the poster. I would assume Sapphire is just trying to capitalize on the The Leader's name, but I find it odd that someone at ESPN hasn't noticed it yet - since I'm sure Stuart Scott's on the site at least 5 times a day.

Anyway, I have no problem with ESPN doing this - if it's actually true - and hopefully we can all find the broadcast, be it radio or TV. Let's hope it's true, because having this event and ESPN come together is perfect, considering The Leader has been involved in multiple sexual harassment cases.

Either way I'm sure Sean Salisbury will be there.

-WCK

ESPN likes crushing kids' dreams

Let's run the bases kids! Oh wait, ESPN won't let us do that anymore.

If you go the New York Mets web site, you'll find that their Sunday August 26th game has been changed from 1:10pm to 8:05pm. The reason is because ESPN wanted to make their Sunday Night Baseball game feature two teams in the pennant race to help their ratings - and MLB agreed to this demand by ESPN.

Nothing wrong with this, right? Well, except that the Sunday game was going to have the Mr. Met Dash going on - which has now been canceled thanks to ESPN's ratings grab. The Mr. Met Dash is a very popular promotion, as it lets kids 12 and under run the bases with Mr. Met - and it only happens a few times a year.

Ouch. So all those kids that were desperate to run around the bases of a major league park - without getting arrested - are probably pretty pissed. Let's just hope they don't do this.

And as for ESPN, it's good to see they aren't letting the little things, like angering their future audience, get in the way of dominating all sports coverage.

-WCK

ESPN screws up #755

This is the image ESPN ran on their Web site for about 5 minutes right after Bonds hit #755 tonight. They got the text right but someone inserted the image with the wrong number above it, as you can tell by the line. You'd think with how long it took Bonds to hit #755 the idiots at the World Wide Leader would have gotten this damn thing right.

Caught Ya indeed.

-WCK

Time to stick it to ESPN

There's no nice way to say this. ESPN's new "Who's Now" segment, on the Web and on Sportscenter, is the definition of shitty, stupid, pandering drivel. Why would I want to hear about real sports news when I can hear about how many commercials Tiger "Nike" Woods has made in the last year?

There's no question that ESPN lost any journalistic integrity it ever had years ago. I mean seriously, when was the last time you saw Bob Ley and an Outside the Lines show. 1997? It runs Monday through Friday at 3:30pm ET. Talk about getting buried.

Yet despite the burial of actual shows that do reporting, for some strange reason the World Wide Leader seems to think it somehow still has some journalistic integrity left - even while it does things like partially own and pimp the Arena League.

Here's ESPN coordinating producer Pat Lowry from just a short time ago, "The bottom line is ESPN's journalistic integrity comes first, always."

Well, we beg to differ - and the "Who's Now" bullshit, which is basically free mass marketing for professional athletes, was the final straw. Here's a list of all the things, in no particular order, that ESPN has done lately that make it clear sports journalism is about the last thing they do. When you add it all up, it starts to look really, really bad and sometimes blatantly unethical. Feel free to add things we didn't put down in the comments.

1. ESPN, which is a minority owner of the Arena League, essentially pressures employees into wearing clothing to work to promote the Arena League.

2. Schrutebag, for no apparent reason, gets listeners of his ESPN radio show to knock down The Big Lead's Web site.

3. Schrutebag steals material from The M Zone, gives no credit to the blog.

4. ESPN goes into a partnership with Verizon Wireless for Mobile ESPN phone. Promptly hawks shitty cell phone all over Sportscenter - repeatedly. Equivalent of this would be The New York Times running a front page, picture-sized ad for some lame product - for months on end.

5. Jason Whitlock fired by ESPN because of his criticism of Scoop Jackson and Mike Lupica on The Big Lead.

6. Nov. 3, 2006 - ESPN for the first time ever runs one advertiser for its 6pm ET Sportscenter. Nike, whose ads come from the Wieden & Kennedy agency in Portland, Oregon, that also creates ESPN's ads, was the single advertiser. Nike spokesman Dean Stoyer said the idea was to exploit the "synergy" with ESPN airing Wednesday night's Wizards-Cavs game starring top Nike pitch man LeBron James by having the entire show sponsored by The LeBrons. A public outcry follows with viewers calling into question the already questionable journalistic integrity of ESPN.

7. Feb. 16, 2007 - ESPN again has one advertiser, this time for the 11pm ET Sportscenter. Sprint's Nextel brand is the advertiser, which sponsor's NASCAR's Nextel Cup season. Idea was to promote the start of the 2007 NASCAR Nextel Cup season.

8. June 26, 2007 - Yet again there's one advertiser for 11pm ET Sportcenter. This time it's the movie Live Free or Die Hard. Even worse, Bruce Willis appears multiple times.

9. The week Pirates of the Caribbean 3 opens, Sportscenter runs an unreal lead in for a Pirates game with scenes from the new movie. Even Steve Levy seems to wonder if this is actually legit or not as he does the lead in.

10. In case you didn't know, ESPN no longer has the rights to the NHL and the PGA, but has the rights to NASCAR and Arena Football. That might be one reason why ESPN seems to cover the Arena League a lot more than it does the NHL.

11. ESPN television ads. Although sometimes funny, there's a serious conflict of interests going on here. Former Ombudsman George Soloman said they violate a key tenet of journalism: objectivity (he was still ombudsman when he said this at the University of Missouri). He sarcastically compared the practice of using athletes for ESPN promotions to a news station using a politician to endorse its programming. “Would NBC have Dick Cheney on one of its commercials promoting NBC?” Solomon asked. “One, why would you want Dick Cheney promoting anything? Two, why would you want Dick Cheney on NBC if you’re covering the vice president on a regular basis?”

12. Bonds on Bonds TV Show. This thing was such an abortion of journalism that even ESPN staffers spoke up about it. From the NYT: "The emotional, sometimes angry debate with ESPN centers in part on whether it has put itself in an untenable journalistic position by aggressively reporting on Bonds's pursuit of Hank Aaron's career home run record while simultaneously carrying, at least through midseason, a series that provides Bonds editorial control of its content. Other serious concerns are whether ESPN is paying for access to Bonds, who is difficult to cover, and giving him hours to rehabilitate his image."

Mike Wallace of 60 Minutes called it "checkbook journalism." Wallace also said he told one ESPN executive, "You've got to be kidding," in reference to the decision to carry the program.

13. Orioles broadcaster Gary Thorne, who also does work for ESPN, says the blood on Curt Schilling's sock from the 2004 playoffs is fake and actually paint. Claims to have heard this from Doug Mirabelli, who denies it entirely. Whether Mirabelli said anything or not, Thorne makes an on-air statement that had no factual basis whatsoever.

14. Steve Young calls out Daunte Culpepper on air for missing team meetings. Turns out Culpepper was in rehab. Steve had heard "from people" Culpepper was missing meetings without confirming it. Nice reporting Steve.

15. ESPN tries to bribe a star high school basketball player with airtime if he tells them before a scheduled press conference where he's going to go to college. Not necessarily 100% unethical, but extremely slimy.

16. Continual pimping of ABC shows on Monday Night Football DURING games, with interviews of actors. Usually this happens before or after games.

James Denton, one of the stars of ABC's hit show "Desperate Housewives," was featured in the booth talking with broadcasters during one game.

During the Giants-Dallas Cowboys game on Oct. 23, Emmitt Smith, was asked more questions about his footwork on "Dancing with the Stars" than he was about his playing days...while his old team was playing.

17. Skip Bayless on "First and 10" says that 50-75% of pro football players are on HGH. Former Giants kicker Jay Feely was a guest on the show and directly called out Bayless on the air saying, "That's ridiculous. It's dangerous for you to make that claim." Bayless also got called out by the Ombudsman for making an assertion about something for which he had no proof.

------

So there you go. I realize there are more instances, feel free to add them.

-WCK

You're with me, Cheese

If you aren't one of the thousands of people who has already seen this, then here you go. It's Chris Berman as a blue-faced sports announcer in a Sesame Street sketch promoting exercise. Something Berman isn't real familiar with.

The muppet looks a lot like Berman, except it isn't fat, sweating or eating its own boogers.

And who the hell is this Baby Bear? Where's Snuffleupagus? Probably doing smack.

-WCK

Was it really that slow of a sports weekend?

Sometimes ESPN does some weird shit on Sunday nights for its extended sports feature pieces. But the one they did Sunday night takes the cake. This story was originally dug up on True Hoop a year and a half ago. Here was Deadspin's take on it as well, and you'll quickly notice we stole their excellent photo. Anyway, the story involves former NBA player Clifford Ray, a dolphin, and a huge sharp screw.

Seems like Mr. Spock - that was the dolphin's name - swallowed a fairly big screw in 1978 that had dropped to the bottom of his pool at Marine World and Warriors center Clifford Ray got called in to pull it out because he had really long arms. He also isn't the only person to ever do this.

But here's my question. Why the hell did ESPN devote almost 1o minutes to this story on Sunday? There were a lot more important, and I would deem "newsworthy", sports stories going on.

ESPN spent more time on the dolphin story than it did on the the French Open, the first victory in F1 racing history by a black driver, and the former Duke lacrosse coach finally talking about last year's cancelled season.

The story also came out of left field. And while I realize there's no easy way to transition to a story about a basketball player sticking his hand down a dolphin's throat - unless maybe you're using the Chad Johnson horse racing story as the feeder - wasn't this the kind of story you save for deadest moments in the sports calender? Not a major sports weekend. Somebody needs to call the ESPN Ombudsman pronto.

-WCK