|
 |
Home  Columnists Below the Fold The Madness Continues. Sort of.
|
The Madness Continues. Sort of. |
|
|
|
Written by Patrick J. Byrnett
|
|
Wednesday, 05 April 2006 |
 It was a disappointing weekend for men’s basketball fans, and the readers of my beloved semi-sports media. After a hot first week of writing and blogging, our Semi-Sports Elite Eight limped their way to the finish. Oh, sure, we’ll have a champion, don’t you worry about that. But to get there, we need to sort through the flotsam of writers who simply gave up caring about the most exciting event in American sports.
Unfamiliar with what we’re talking about? Catch up here. The basic premise – the NCAA tournament provides the perfect opportunity to analyze the various gimmicks the semi-sports media uses to cover the event through yet another gimmick. The basis of comparison is solely my taste, but since this column hopes to inspire the SSM to always write from the voice of the fan, we try to take a generalist approach. The champion gets nothing but glory. With no further ado … REGIONAL FINALSEasily the best matchup of our Elite Eight. Now, we appreciate the dap given by Deadspin after our first week of semi-sports bracketology, so we don’t want to seem like we’re kissing up here. But we appreciate more the seriousness with which they approached their business. Deadspin’s coverage didn’t slip a little bit as the tournament went on. Exhibit (a) – a new set of “Tiny Tidbits” on each Sweet 16 team, compiled from readers on a day or so’s notice. Exhibit (b) – hilarious game day coverage from weekend editor MJD, though the game blog concept was abandoned. Mocking sponsors, video from the Mason shocker (hehe) over UConn … they had it all. Kudos are deserved, not just for the site’s editors, but for loyal readers who fed them great information and content.  Oh, but don’t trifle with the Worldwide Leader, and the founder of the SSM, Page 2. We were, admittedly, disappointed that Mr. and Miss Bracket won in the first round … and since we are the only judges here, that’s kinda saying something, isn’t it? We had high hopes for Mike and Mike’s Marriage Madness, but … God, it just really sucks. It’s a terrible promotion that’s not even tangentially related to sports. (But, of course, we’ll be covering the actual nuptials in this very space, so we’ll save our extended griping for then.) So, when we sent Mr. and Miss Bracket to the 2nd round, we hoped it would be worth our while. And maybe it was. We argue for the voice of the fan, and this gimmick was nothing more, nothing less. Caple and Buckheit did the polish, but for the most part, they handed the mic to some devoted fans and let them talk about their passions. For the online competition, they didn’t even do the polishing – readers voted on the crazies, Cameron or otherwise, from across this great collegiate land based on nothing but their own words. We love that kind of stuff. So could it be an upset? I think … wait … [looks again at the schools that the Page 2 writers visited] … hold on a second. They only had time to visit only four campuses … and Tennessee was on there? WHAT? I know that ESPN wants to give some love to women’s basketball fans, but this smacks of corporate planning, given ESPN’s love affair with Bruce Pearl throughout the early part of the tournament. Screw that. Winner: (1) Deadspin’s Pants Party. (12) Commercial Coverage vs. (4) Tournament Blogs and Reader Pools Ugh – what a terrible matchup this is, because neither team really showed up. The ads that drove everybody nuts the first weekend reached a certain saturation point by the weekend of the Sweet 16. Here at SMW, we even realized that we could sing harmonies along with the Applebee’s ads, and that somehow made it less horrible. We don’t know the exact cause, but for whatever reason, the complaints simply disappeared. Maybe we’re more of a 1984 society than we want to admit. But it’s not like the tournament blogs were any better. Sure, CBS’s “glogs” kept running, but even though they weren’t bad despite a stupid name, I’m not entirely convinced anyone was reading them even during the first weekend. If you want a blog, you go to a blog. If you want scores during the tournament, you go to ESPN or Sportsline. Not a whole lot of overlap, there ... at least, not yet. As for the tournament pools, I’m beginning to wonder why fans bother entering except out of boredom, because NOBODY does enough with them. Deadspin bothered to announce the winner of it’s pool on Tuesday. So did Shanoff. But that’s about it. But we have to let one of these teams advance. “In the world of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.” Boy, I hate that phrase. Winner: (4) Tournament Blogs and Reader Pools.  (6) El Hombre Knows his Brackets vs. (3) ClayNation’s Tournament View
His partner at SPiN, however, brought the noise and the funk. Clay Travis, we salute you. For writing only twice a week … and for being a GW grad (sorry, we’re Hoyas here at SMW) … he managed to find a way to devote most of his column inches to the tournament. A solid piece on what it’s like to watch your favorite team(s) lose. An impassioned, and informed, plea for fans to cheer for George Mason, and not just because they were the underdog. And even a little information on the popularity of the Shocker. Clay … you write like you were one of us. And had you gone to the other school on the Potomac, maybe you would have been. Winner: (3) ClayNation’s Tournament View. The Steam Room, meanwhile, didn’t even bother trying. Oh, SPiN. We thought you had more in you than this. But after a solid analysis of the movement of NCAA Tournament players prospects for the NBA lottery, The Steam Room went back to it’s usual views on celebrities in sports. Let’s just say that fantasy baseball was involved. Not that there is anything wrong with that. But we’re disappointed. Winner: (7) Hofstettler Takes on College Hoops
As the above might belie, spending space here on our Final Four matchups would be a waste. Hofstettler was funny, but ultimately offered nothing novel. The tournament blogs and reader pools were great in concept, but weak in execution as the tournament went along. That leaves us with a clear final matchup: (1) Deadspin’s Pants Party vs. (3) ClayNation’s Tournament View. And we’ll have that, and a review of the Tournament coverage as a whole, on Friday.
|
|
