 Sometimes a picture tells a thousand words because the writers are off doing something else. Which seems to be the case with last night’s Seattle-Philly game, this morning’s lead photo on all the major national sports sites, and not a hint of actual commentary among them. All those links? Yeah, they go right to the box score (at Fox, two links: same box score). Which is a shame, really, because there’s huge football news this morning, if you know where to look.
Well, it’s a whole different sport, really. That other football.
Completely missing from all of those home pages is the news that FIFA has selected the #1 seeds for the 2006 World Cup in advance of Friday’s full group drawing. It’s fresh news, brewed just this morning, and it follows nicely from the marginal attention paid to swirling controversy about Friday’s drawing.
The U.S. will not be a #1 seed; the American side lost out by a mere point from among the various qualifying criteria. Perhaps if the U.S. had earned that seeding, American sports media would bump the story higher, but given the relative slowness of the news day, and the increasing international hype in advance of Friday’s drawing, the Digest is officially surprised that ESPN isn’t making more of a deal of this (if only so that they have something to write about on Friday when the big show goes down).
Oh, there’s some coverage. Michael Lewis’s feature on the strange complexities of the drawing gets a home page link, complete with the nicely sensationalized “It isn’t fixed, is it?” headline. And poking around Soccernet, ESPN’s vast online soccer website, you’ll run across additional commentary, including this ode to the drawing and its ludicrousness.
But overall, ESPN and its friendly rivals have just let this one go completely, which, we have to admit, is a bit surprising. ESPN has limited broadcast rights to next summer’s cup, and ESPN2 is actually broadcasting the drawing live, Friday at 3:00. Information that we found only on CNN/SI. Even by Bristol’s own twisted logic, this seems like a very strange editorial decision, and it just begs the question, why?
We’ve got three non-mutually-exclusive explanations here:
1) Bristol really, really, really believes that marketing soccer to its mainstream audience is essentially impossible, and has given up, even to the extent that it is willing to forego actual news stories that would presumably boost ratings for its own programming.
2) Bristol really, really, really believes that there is something else out there in the news cycle that deserves more prominent attention. Hot stove league, NFL playoff speculation, maybe, but in the midweek cycle that’s hard to understand. Maybe they’re sitting on a controversial wide receiver interview they just haven’t aired yet.
3) The World Cup is getting massive ESPN coverage, but just on ESPN Deportes or other, non-mainstream ESPN avenues. The network’s broadcast channels are so diversified, and their demographic information so complete, that they are able to target Cup coverage exclusively to the longstanding ethnic communities within the U.S. that have traditionally been bigger Cup supporters and consumers.
Regardless, it’s just odd. And with the Cup drawing late on Friday afternoon, FIFA hasn’t done itself any favors in the American sports media cycle; whether ESPN grants the actual drawing any significant coverage will have to be a question for later in the week, and for Monday morning, by which time the NFL will have surely climbed back to the top of the heap.
A Kinder, Gentler Evil Empire
Reports emerged on Sunday citing a New York Daily News report that the Yankees had finished the 2005 season $50-80 million in the red. Despite making some limited offseason signings (notably pitcher Kyle Farnsworth), the perception has emerged that the Yankees are approaching this offseason with more of a spending cap, and at a financial disadvantage, compared both with several other teams in the marketplace and with the Yankees of previous years. Hence stories like today’s piece in Newsday referencing Cashman’s new thriftiness as he heads to Dallas for the winter meetings.
Especially in comparison with the shopping spree that the crosstown Mets have been on, the effect, as Darren Rovell points out in yesterday’s blog entry, is to make the Yankees appear like softer, gentler versions of themselves, almost enough to generate some public sympathy (which, outside of the upper west side, has been in short supply for George’s boys).
Rovell further points out that the Yankees’ alleged defecit is not as clear-cut as it sounds: the Bombers have undervalued licensing and rights revenues and underreported various other ancillary incomes, the rumored $200 million payroll is actually closer to $185. Meaning that while the Yankees may have lost some money, the $85 million figure is likely preposterous.
It will be curious to see to what extent the media perception of the Yankees changes with respect to the Mets’ moves and over the course of the winter meetings. Separately, it’s great to see Rovell doing the kind of hard-hitting economic analysis that was his bread & butter when “Sports Business” existed as a self-contained ESPN.com section.
See You Wednesday
So we should give some credit to Wilbon for doing Friday’s PTI fresh from laser eye surgery. Or maybe that’s just idiotic, it’s not like Tony doesn’t take a few days off every now and then. Anyway, from the Ray Charles look, Wilbon emerged yesterday completely sans eyewear, but one commercial break later (in time for “Five Good Minutes” with Jaws), the glasses were back. He later referred to them as “reading glasses,” though we thought laser eye surgery would take care of that. Instead, we prefer to think they’re just clear frames, too big a part of Wilbon’s fashion sense to be left behind.
New York Times sports section feature this morning on the Cyberathlete Professional League Grand Finals, or, if you’re not aware, playing video games for cash. Which is notable if only because it was not so long ago that these stories got filed in the Technology, Lifestyles, or Arts & Entertainment sections: now, the highest-profile newspaper in the country is filing video games – and not just EA Sports stuff - under “sports.” And if you’re keeping score, Fatal1ty knocked off Vo0 in four straight 15-minute frag-based matches. |
Daily Digest 
