The Scripps National Spelling Bee isn't quite a sport, but it is its own unique and virtuosic thing. So why does it so reliably drag the worst bullying instincts out of the internet?
Chris Broussard is famous, and ESPN gives him a large megaphone; Tim Brando is less so. But their shared brand of cheap, not-all-that-righteous righteousness is entirely too dim, lazy and small to mean anything, no matter how easy it is hear their voices.
It's comforting to see ESPN's Colin Cowherd as a mutant, mainly because he acts like one. But he's also an incarnation of a whole horrible and highly successful way of thinking, talking, and yelling about sports. None of it is good, but the last bit's worse.
The general mood at the Sloan Sports and Analytics Conference was that of a happy revolution, and a celebration of good, new ideas overtaking and replacing bad, old ones. But how bloodless is this coup, really, and what would the post-revolution landscape look like?
The "argument" between Skip Bayless and Richard Sherman on ESPN's "debate" show First Take was the latest in a long line of highly embarrassing, increasingly frequent moments for the network and their resident curmudgeon. And even though he's starting to finally wear out his welcome at the Worldwide Leader, with the rise of Fox Sports 1, it looks like we may never get rid of him.
The Sloan Sports and Analytics Conference may not have been quite the revolution as its most ardent acolytes imagined, but a lot of business cards were exchanged anyway. Part one of a two-part dispatch from a land where the GM of the Houston Rockets is something like a king, and all believe that some great change is coming.
There's nothing wrong with some idle speculation on the NCAA Tournament, especially as March approaches. But a little bit less of ESPN Bracketologist-in-chief Joe Lunardi, and the silly, over-certain pseudoscience he sells, might do us all some good.
Darren Rovell has been kicked around a lot over the past week. He deserves it, as he generally does, but perhaps worse than anything Rovell said or did is that he was just doing his job.
National Signing Day has quickly evolved into a sports holiday, covered within an inch of its life by any number of outlets, and always ESPN is leading the way. That many of the kids who seem like stars today will fade away before the end of spring practice seems secondary.
ESPN's QBR may or may not take off as the next great advanced football metric. But the stat-heads who helped design the proprietary stat were very willing to explain its most controversial aspect, the much-debated (and confusingly named) "Clutch Index."
