Recently in Sports Category
Since I live in Dallas, and have the hell of living in Cowboy land, one majorly huge lifeline for me is the NFL Sunday Ticket package on DirecTV. It allows me to watch pretty much whatever game I want, so I get to see all the Eagles games (I'm from Philly), and Steeler games (wife's from Pittsburgh) without having to sit through the agony of all the Dallas Cowboy games every week.
That's been my intro text since I've been doing these updates, but unfortunately, starting in 2007 I have had to drop Sunday Ticket, mostly due to cost. In the last year and a half, I've taken a larger, more active role in my church, and due to that, I ended up missing a lot of Sunday ticket games in 2006. I am likely going to be doing the same events this year, and due to the overall cost of Ticket, I decided to drop it if I was going to be missing a lot of the games. I didn't want to do that, and if it wasn't so darned expensive, I wouldn't, but there you are. It's gotten worse in 2008. The base price for the package is $299, and if you want games in high def, it's an additional $99, as they're in the "Superfan" addon for the package. That's $400 friggin dollars for the season. SCREW THAT!
Anyway, for the last several seasons (08 is my seventh, 02 was the first), I've put together a Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet containing the entire NFL Season Schedule for all the NFL Sunday Ticket channels. You can download it, print it, and have the entire schedule on one page. This originally started out as a project for some people on the TiVo community forums, but I've moved to my own blog as my primary distribution point. Still, I wanted to say hi to the folks over there, even if it's not a regular hangout anymore.
The first year I did this I did just the NFLST games. But since then I include everything else. Which lately has gotten a lot more confusing. My schedule also covers the ESPN MNF games, the Sunday night NBC games, various Thursday NFL Network games, and the other oddities like Thanksgiving day, things like that. They're all here. Here's a few notes about the spreadsheet and the NFL schedule this season:
- In the past years I've done this document, I've used the DirecTV NFL Sunday Ticket schedule as a source. I'd then have to flesh it out with addtl info on NBC & NFL Network games. This year, those games are listed in the DirecTV schedule. However, there were several games that were in conflict with the schedule at nfl.com. Specifically, I'm talking about mostly non Sunday games. When there was a conflict, I went with the nfl.com schedule.
- There are a few games this year that DirecTV's schedule list as TBA. These are in Week 16 & 17. The Week 16 game is listed as being on Channel 716 with TBD@TBD. This is impossible, as there are already 16 games scheduled that week, so I have ignored that listing. On Week 17, they appear to have all 16 games being played on Sunday, and the standard layout of NFLST channels is not enough to carry them all. Two games are listed as late games, but without a channel assignment (SEA@ARI & WAS@SF). I've made note of this on the Week 17 notes line.
- In the past, DirecTV has never published their HD schedule until generally the week before any given Sunday. This year, there is a listed schedule for HDTV games, but they're the sAME channels as the SD versions, which is impossible. In 2007, the HD games were on channels 719-733. One would think they'd be there again, but there's no concrete proof of this.
- This spreadsheet was created with Microsoft Excel 2007. Just noting that in case you have an old version of Office or something that needs a specific requirement from the program creating the spreadsheet. I've saved it in an older format (Excel 97-2003), but you never know.
- Weeks 11 through 17 are part of "Flex Scheduling". Being tired of getting stuck with dud games on TV at the end of the season, the NFL now has an adjustable schedule for the Sunday night NBC broadcasts. In 2006 (the first year) it was "open" with a game being moved, but in 2007 (and now 2008), they have a defined game for Sunday night. Weeks 11-17 though could have the Sunday night game switch with something else. The NFL site has some details on the 2007 version of Flex Scheduling online at the link here (I have not seen an update yet for 2008).
- I also have this available as a spreadsheet in Google Spreadsheets. If you would like to have access to my online version, you can visit it at the link below. The only problem there is that the Google Spreadsheets version doesn't properly translate all of the notes I have. It's there if you want to check it out, though.
If you use this, send me an email and let me know. I don't want anything, I just like to know that people actually use the thing. Feel free to pass this to whomever you want, just please don't change the credits; distribute it as I sent it. That's all I ask.
If you find any errors, please let me know.
I signed up for XM Radio back in the Spring of 2005. The reason I did it was because of their 24 hour baseball talk channel, dubbed "MLB Home Plate". They run several things on that channel. Primarily it's various talk shows. But the biggest bugger has been that it's not on the XM Radio online service. If you're an XM subscriber, you can login with your account, and listen online anywhere. This is particularly helpful to me, as my office is a cave. It's in the middle of the building, I work in, and while it's a small one story building, it's still got no windows, and I cannot get reception for my XM Radio. I've tried with signal repeaters at various windows in the building - no go. This is an issue for me, because the online version of XM has to date not included the MLB Home Plate channel.
I've written to several producers and folks at XM, and they have told me the reason they have not been allowed to put it online is MLBAM themselves. You see, one of the things they do on MLB Home Plate is include "live lookins" when something cool happens in a game. I don't particularly use that feature on the shows they have, but I could understand (if not agree with) why MLB didn't want a competing product available online like that. So I've missed a lot of programming I've wanted to hear because I couldn't listen online.
Well, that's finally changed. I saw a story today on Orbitcast (Satellite news) saying that as of Saturday the 29th, XM will FINALLY MAKE HOME PLATE AVAILABLE ON THEIR STREAMING ONLINE SERVICE. This is such good news, I think it warrants an appearance from "w00t guy!" :)
Seriously, this is extremely good news. I've wanted this channel online for ages, so I can listen during the day. I love the talk shows here, but I haven't been able to listen because I've been unable to get a signal in my office during the day, and they haven't had it. w00t indeed! Anyway, here's some of the shows on the channel (all times below are Central):
Baseball This Morning: This show's hosts are Mark Patrick & Buck Martinez. Mark Patrick knows baseball, but seems to be less "serious" than some of the other show hosts. One of their producers goes by the nickname of "The Godfather", and Patrick himself goes by the nickname of "The Big Chair". While their baseball talk is fine, they seem to be more into the "show" and "character" aspect of being on radio. When it originally launched, there was a third host, that being Larry Bowa. Bowa stayed there until he got a job with the Yankees as a coach, and was replaced by Orestes ("The Latin O") Destrada, who stayed for awhile until he left last year. They did not replace O, and I think they gave up on the idea of three hosts, which I liked, since it tended to keep the focus more towards baseball with three on this show. Anyway, this show runs from 5AM to 8AM, and then immediately repeats from 8AM to 11AM.
Fantasy Focus: Hosted by Jeff Erickson of rotowire.com, this show runs one hour (from 11AM to noon), and focuses (as you'd guess by the name) on fantasy baseball. There's less talk about baseball news on this show, and a stricter reliance on discussions specifically relating to fantasy baseball. This is my least favorite show of the lineup. Not that it's bad, but the fantasy aspects of baseball discussion are of less interest to me.
Baseball Beat: To me, by far the best show on the channel. This is hosted by Dodgers broadcasters Charley Steiner. What I like most about this show over all the other show - and this is a big one for me - NO CALL INS! At least not from the general public. He does take calls, but that's the beauty of it. It's from beat writers for specific teams, hence the name of the show. They've had Evan Grant on several times, and they talk to other local writers for teams. I absolutely love that, you get to hear from people who actually cover teams like the Pittsburgh Pirates, the Tampa Bay Rays, and the Kansas City Royals. I mean, will ESPN do big deals on those? Hell no, they want to suck on the gob of the Yankees and Red Sox. So I love the fact they talk about other teams, and with people who know what they're talking about. Unlike the usual callers who call in to these shows and ask a litany of stupid questions, which make me want to scream and turn off the radio. I love this show - no public call ins! YAY!
The Show: Hosted by former Ranger manager Kevin Kennedy and Reds pitcher Rob Dibble. This one I get to listen to the least, as it runs from 2PM to 5PM, and I'm usually at work then. From what I heard, this is the more opinionated show on the slate, and that's likely due to the personality of the hosts. Or at least Rob Dibble. That's the reason I garner he disappeared from ESPN's Baseball Tonight - strong opinions. Which is fine. When I listen, I like the show, but I hear this the least based on timing.
XM on Deck: This show runs for an hour between 5 and 6, and will preview the games coming up that evening. During the offseason, it's just a general talk show.
MLB Live & MLB Live Late Edition: These shows combine to run from 6PM to midnight. They consist mostly of live look ins to games in progress. There's also a healthy dose of talk too when nothing is going on in terms of things to "look in" on.
Other things that run on the channel are classic games on the offhours, and there's some other shows that don't run as regularly. Like Baseball Confidential where they talk to an individual for an hour. There's also some weekend only shows, like "Minors & Majors" with Grant Paulsen and "Ripken Baseball" with the Ripken brothers. If you like talking baseball, this is the channel for you. Yeah, I realized I turned this post into essentially an ad for XM Radio, but the fact that I will be able to FINALLY listen to Home Plate online while I'm at work is a MAJOR huge deal for me.
And on top of that, they have all the games broadcast during the season too. If you're a hockey fan, that's a bonus, as they have a 24/7 NHL channel, too (as well as the NHL games in a similar fashion).
If you don't have XM, you should consider getting it. They have a trial signup you can get for two weeks via the website to listen to the streaming version - which after Saturday will include Home Plate, the entire reason I bought XM in the first place.
It's about time, guys.
Since I live in Dallas, and have the hell of living in Cowboy land, one majorly huge lifeline for me is the NFL Sunday Ticket package on DirecTV. It allows me to watch pretty much whatever game I want, so I get to see all the Eagles games (I'm from Philly), and Steeler games (wife's from Pittsburgh) without having to sit through the agony of all the Dallas Cowboy games every week.
That's been my intro text since I've been doing these updates, but unfortunately in 2007 I have had to drop Sunday Ticket, mostly due to cost. In the last year and a half, I've taken a larger, more active role in my church, and due to that, I ended up missing a lot of Sunday ticket games in 2006. I am likely going to be doing the same events this year, and due to the overall cost of Ticket, I decided to drop it if I was going to be missing a lot of the games. I didn't want to do that, and if it wasn't so darned expensive, I wouldn't, but there you are. :)
Anyway, for the last several seasons (07 is my seventh doing this I believe), I've put together a Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet containing the entire NFL Season Schedule for all the NFL Sunday Ticket channels. You can download it, print it, and have the entire schedule on one page. This originally started out as a project for some people on the TiVo community forums, but I've moved to my own blog as my primary distribution point. Still, I wanted to say hi to the folks over there, even if it's not a regular hangout anymore.
The first year I did this I did just the NFLST games. But since then I include everything else. Which lately has gotten a lot more confusing. My schedule also covers the ESPN MNF games, the Sunday night NBC games, various Thurdsay NFL Network games, and the other oddities like Thanksgiving day, things like that. They're all here. Here's a few notes about the spreadsheet and the NFL schedule this season:
- For the last several years, DirecTV has not published the HD schedule until generally the week of, so that makes it impossible to schedule early like this. If DirecTV ever would publish their full season HD schedule ahead of time, I'd add that. If it changes, I'll update, but I'm not holding my breath. You shouldn't, either.
- Weeks 11-17 are now part of the new "Flex Scheduling". Being tired of getting stuck with dud games on TV at the end of the season, the NFL has implemented this policy. The NFL will move one game from the schedule to the Sunday night slot no closer than 12 days from gameday. Lots of details on the new flex scheduling are available on the NFL.com website here. I suggest reading it. Those notes are about the 2006 season, I've yet to see a note about the 07 flex scheduling.
- Two years ago, someone had a great idea - to color code the boxes for an individual team's games with their team colors. I think it's a great idea, but that's 32 extra spreadsheets for me to do. Great idea, but I don't have the time to make that many spreadsheets. :)
- I also have this available as a spreadsheet in Google Spreadsheets. If you would like to have access to my online version, you can reach it online here. The online version has a few display oddities in some of the notes, though.
If you use this, send me an email and let me know. I don't want anything, I just like to know that people actually use the thing. Feel free to pass this to whomever you want, just please don't change the credits; distribute it as I sent it. That's all I ask.
Thanks to Richard for being my proofreader this year.
If you find any errors, please let me know.
As the season has just started, I wanted to bump this back up the top again. Also, if you are a Google Spreadsheets user, and wish to view that version, you can do so here. Google just implemented a feature where I can allow anyone to view it now, you don't need a specific invite like before. The regular downloadable version is still available, it's in the main story below.
Since I live in Dallas, and have the hell of living in Cowboy land, one majorly huge lifeline for me is the NFL Sunday Ticket package on DirecTV. It allows me to watch pretty much whatever game I want, so I get to see all the Eagles games (I'm from Philly), and Steeler games (wife's from Pittsburgh) without having to sit through the agony of all the Dallas Cowboy games every week.
Anyway, for the last several seasons (06 is my fifth doing this I believe), I've put together a Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet containing the entire NFL Season Schedule for all the NFL Sunday Ticket channels. You can download it, print it, and have the entire schedule on one page. This originally started out as a project for some people on the TiVo community forums, but I've moved to my own blog as my primary distribution point. Still, I wanted to say hi to the folks over there. :)
The first year I did this I did just the NFLST games. But since then I include everything else. Which in 2006 is a lot more confusing. I also have the ESPN MNF games, the Sunday night NBC games, various Thurdsay NFL Network games, and the other oddities like Thanksgiving day, things like that. They're all here. Here's a few notes about the spreadsheet and the NFL schedule this season:
- For the last two years, DirecTV did not publish the HD schedule until generally the week of, so that makes it impossible to schedule. If DirecTV ever would publish their full season HD schedule ahead of time, I'd add that, but it's been this way for the last couple of seasons. If it changes for 2006, I'll update, but I'm not holding my breath.
- Monday Night Football moved from ABC to ESPN this season.
- The Sunday night games that were on ESPN now have moved to NBC. ABC is out, they have no games at all now.
- Weeks 10-15 & 17 are now part of the new "Flex Scheduling". Being tired of getting stuck with dud games on TV at the end of the season, the NFL now has a rather large number of games listed as early games these weeks. The NFL will move one game from the schedule to the Sunday night slot no closer than 12 days from gameday. Lots of details on the new flex scheduling are available on the NFL.com website here. I suggest reading it.
- I've been doing this spreadsheet for about 5 seasons now, and the more stuff they add like flex scheduling, Thursday games, etc, the more cluttered my spreadsheet goes. If it gets worse next season, I may have to revisit how I lay this out.
- Last year someone had a great idea - to color code the boxes for an individual team's games with their team colors. I think it's a great idea, but that's 32 extra spreadsheets for me to do. Great idea, but I don't have the time to make that many spreadsheets. :)
- I also have this available as a spreadsheet in Google Spreadsheets. If you would like to have access to my online version, send me an email to joe@siegler.net with your Google account name, and I'll get you hooked up.
Google Spreadsheets doesn't have a "let everyone see" option, otherwise THAT would be my primary distribution method. Scratch that. They do now. You can reach it online here.
If you use this, send me an email and let me know. I don't want anything, I just like to know that people actually use the thing. Feel free to pass this to whomever you want, just please don't change the credits; distribute it as I sent it. That's all I ask.
Thank you, and enjoy!
A couple of updates since I originally posted this:
- Update Jul 25: Week 3 had an incorrect opponent for the Rams. It said Panters, should ahve been Cardinals. Fixed. Thanks BrianT.
- Update Jul 31: Two NYJ/NYG mixups. Week 7's MNF game and Week 11's Ch 714 game. Thanks to gruxx.
- Update Sep 4: Another NYJ/NYG mixup. Week 11's MNF football game. Fixed. Thanks to Kevin in FL.
- Update Sep 4 #2: I finally found the time to go through the spreadsheet and remove all the hyperlinks in the games. For example, DAL@PHI was being translated into an email link. These are all gone now.
If you find any errors, please let me know.
I read a lot. I used to read mostly books, but it's mostly the Internet now. I also read a lot of baseball stuff, and as such I like to read up on what's going on. Anyway, I read a couple of fan blogs for MLB teams fairly regularly, and it made me wonder if such animals exist for ther rest of the teams? Here's what I read regularly blog wise:
Texas Rangers:
1) My site at http://www.rangerfans.com
2) The Newberg Report Site; (also available as a blog here).
Seattle Mariners: U.S.S. Mariner.
Philadelphia Phillies: Beerleaguer.
If you know of a good MLB fan blog, let me know. I also read a ton of more generic baseball blogs (Will Carroll's, a few other Rangers sites, mlb trade rumours, etc..) Let me know if you know of something good there too - although I'm primarily looking for QUALITY fan blogs for specific teams. And it has to be reguarly updated, too.
You know one of the casualties of the National Hockey League lockout was their exposure on ESPN. ESPN decided that when Hockey returned that they weren't going to pony up what the NHL wanted, and decided to go without the Coolest Game on Ice. Hockey already suffered from terrible ratings as it was, and the loss of exposure on ESPN (banishing 'em to OLN) won't help that. That's not my point here, really.
If ESPN was worried that Hockey wasn't going to bring in ratings, what do I see tonight advertised on the channel? A friggin Spelling Bee! A spelling bee on ESPN? What is that nonsense? Since when did a spelling bee become somthing worthy of being televised on a national sports channel? I seriously think ESPN is heading down the same road to irrelevancy that MTV is at now.
Are they seriously telling us that they think a spelling bee would bring in more ratings and money than the NHL would? Course they've got their noses so far up Barry Bonds' backside anyway, I can't say I'm completely surprised by this, I guess.
Last night I watched and enjoyed something I usually detest and run away from. My wife was watching Women's Figure Skating, and I decided that I needed to spend some time with her doing something she liked. Now granted, I was't glued to the set, as I did have a baseball magazine with me, but I did want to watch some of it with her. Now before I say anything else, I must say I normally don't watch this, so if any figure skating experts read this, forgive any "green" comments.
I think I saw four routines. The first one that really grabbed me was Fumie Suguri of Japan. She looked really smooth, and didn't make any mistakes I could fiind (granted, I'd probably miss a lot being a neophyte). After her routine, I thought she was really good - and she was, but she didn't place first (I think third). She also caught some of the stuff that's thrown on the ice at the end of routines, which my wife said wasn't normally done.
I did not see the routine of Irina Slutskaya, who is the one name I know from past competitions I've heard about. I knew she'd be good, and she was in first place the whole time I watched. I'll have to watch hers on a rerun.
However, I have to admit to being totally surprised at how transfixed I was by the routine of Sasha Cohen. Normally I don't pay this close attention (Yeah, yeah, skating's on - where's my baseball stuff?) - but this was very impressive. Yes, she took first place with her routine. But that's not why. Normally skating doesn't interest me - for the most part I feel that all of them have certain things they all do, and personal interpretation of said moves is something that escapes me. I generally feel they all look the same. But not this one. There was something extra in here - energy, style, smoothness - I don't know what, but wow was it impressive. I even asked my wife not to delete the event off the TiVo, that I'd want to watch it again. Not only that I told her I wanted to watch the long form skating on Thursday night with her. Cohen looked good on the ice, it seemed perfect to my eyes. She did something impressive, and that's actually make me want to watch skating again. That is an accomplishment with me of epic proportions.
You can see her routine over at NBC's website for the olympics here.
Thanks mom!
Last night I went to a Dallas Stars game. I normally only go to one or two a year, mostly because of the price of the tickets. Even with the (small) reduction in price since the NHL has come back from the strike, their tickets are still stupid expensive. Anyway, my mother bought me a 10 ticket voucher pack for the 2006 season of the Texas Rangers for Christmas. She ordered it early, and because of that, they gave you a voucher for a couple of free Dallas Stars tickets. I turned in the voucher for the game last night, and they were pretty good seats. They were Sec 326, Row A, Seats 1 & 2. It was the first row of the upper deck right at the blue line behind the visitor's bench. Were pretty good seats, especially for free (they were valued at $65 each). Here's the view from where I was sitting:
Anyway, in the first intermission, they started showing a bunch of promos and whatnot on the screen, and one of them was a request for people with cel phones in the arena to text message something to a specific phone number, and you'd be entered in a drawing for a prize. So I did it as a goof, not thinking anything of it, nothing ever happens. Well, in the second intermission the friend I was with went out to get a beer, and while he was away, I got another text message back from the place I sent the submission to. Figured it was a "If you want more information on our radio station (it was a station sponsoring this), send here". That's not what it was. It was a message saying "Congratulations, you've won the autographed jersey, please report to Guest Services behind Section 102".
I had won an authentic Dallas Stars Jersey that was autographed by most of the team. From the looks of it, it's not the entire team, but there's a good number of players on there. It was incredibly cool. Anyway, I told the people sitting next to my friend where I was going, and took off for Section 102. After a few questions to prove who I was, they handed me the jersey you see in the picture below. They did give me a bag to put it in, which was probably a good idea. :)
I get back to my section, and my friend who was back at that point saw me with the bag and said "You did win the thing, didn't you?" - he thought I was just goofing on him telling him I won that while I went off to the bathroom or something. I became a mini celebrity for a few minutes when all the people aruond me realized that I had won the jersey. The friend who went with me was annoyed, as he had entered the thing too, and they gave away just one of these for the entire arena, so I was pretty darned lucky to get it.
And the game itself was quite good, the Stars tying the game with less than 60 seconds in the third period, and then winning it in the shootout.
So thanks Mom - I had a great time at the game, and the jersey was extremely cool - I'll probably get it framed and hang it on the wall. Here is a picture of it hanging on one of the racks that is in my office today.
I'm not the biggest college sports fan. I far prefer the pros. However, one can't help but be enthralled by this game. It was a great game all around. One of the few that's ever come close to it's hype. #1 vs #2 ranking, both 12-0. Came down to the end of the game. I saw the first half of the game at a bowling alley, as it was league night for me. The two alleys next to mine were vacant, so the employees put the game on the overhead monitors for the unused lanes, that was cool. Whenever the Longhorns did something, the entire house pretty much erupted. It was a great feeling.
Even the Major League Baseball Site got into it with an article about the game, also speculating on the possibility of a Rangers / Astros World Series. :)
Saw the fourth quarter at home, and wow, what a finish. Congrats, and what a performance by Vince Young.
Anyone who knows me knows I love to wear baseball caps. Always have. Part of the problem is that I live in Texas, and if I wear one outside in the summer for more than a few times, they tend to get nasty. The immediate response is "get another one". That's fine, except..
To me the only cap one should buy are the fitted kind. The "one size fits all" with the plastic snaps in the back are NOT the kind to get. They never fit right; the fitted ones just feel so much better. New Era 59/50 fitted cap all the way. The problem with that is that they're not cheap. This past season, the price of them was raised to $28 per cap. One can usually find a discount here and there, but they're still too damn expensive.
Today as a lark I ran across this link online which talks about how you can wash your baseball caps. Check it out, it's got some interesting insight, as well as some amusing remarks about the oddball looks you'll get from your wife/girlfriend about theories on how things should be washed. :)
Since I live in Dallas, and have the hell of living in Cowboy land, one majorly huge lifeline for me is the NFL Sunday Ticket package on DirecTV. It allows me to watch pretty much whatever game I want, so I get to see all the Eagles games, and Steeler games (my wife's from Pittsburgh) without having to sit through the agony of all the Dallas Cowboy games.
Anyway, for the last three seasons, I've put together a Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet containing the entire NFL Season Schedule for all the NFL Sunday Ticket channels. You can download it, print it, and have the entire schedule on one page. This also includes the Monday Night Football games, the Sunday night ESPN games, as well as the oddball extra games (Thanksgiving Thursday, etc).
DirecTV has not yet published their HD scheduling information, so I decided to release this now, and if/when they put it on their site, I'll update the spreadsheet. I know I said I'd do that last season and didn't, but I hope to keep on top of that this year. Anyway, attached to this message is my 2005 Edition of the NFL Sunday Ticket Schedule Spreadsheet.
I primarily have done this for the folks on the DirecTV forum on the TiVo Community Forums, but this year since I have an active blog, I'll mention it here, too. You can download it here:
http://www.siegler.net/2005nflsundayticket.zip
If you use it, please drop me a line. I don't want anything, just curious to know who might be using it. I wasn't even going to do one for the 2005 season at all, because I didn't think anyone used it, but someone wrote me and asked if I was going to do it, so I did.
The political correctness people are soon to come after you. I know it's been tried already, but the stupidity that is "pc" in our culture has struck another blow for inaneness. This news story tells us that...
The NCAA banned the use of American Indian mascots by sports teams during its postseason tournaments
Excuse me? Why is the postseason any different than the regular season? Oh yeah, money. Might offend some advertiser. It's OK to be offensive when no one is looking, but when someone who pays the bills is there, OH NO - don't be a bad boy! I think I'm gonna go out and buy merchandise by these teams immediately.
Just wait till PETA thinks animals are being harmed because all the animal team names. That's another group of people (PETA) that need to be eliminated from the earth, or at least prevented from reproducing.
I read this story this morning, and it signals to me the end of ESPN.
Why? The article talks about having "less games", and more original movies and series. That's the exact path MTV started down ages ago, and now they're completely irrelevant. Their name has nothing to do with their programming. If ESPN starts down that path, they will become something that SPORTS FANS won't care about. And that's who the network was created for. SPORTS FANS.
We don't care about original programming, we don't care about movies, we care about the SPORTS - and that is something that must be foremost up front. Like the M in MTV, the S in ESPN is about Sports. It's not EMPN, it's about the sports!
As Yoda said, �If once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny.� Don't do it ESPN. Don't let the lure of cheap programming ratings ruin what is your reason for living. SPORTS.
Those of you who know me know I love baseball. I've been running a fan website for the Texas Rangers sine December of 1998. It's been fairly popular, even making it into the stadium program for 3 months last year!
However, I finally decided to blogify my Rangers site. I turned my news section of the site into a blog. So if you want to see my latest, go visit my Rangers site here:
THE YANKEES STINK!
OK, that's not my main reason for this blog entry. It's a rather amusing little article I just saw on ESPN which projects the Yankees lineups through the year 2010. It's quite amusing, check it out.
I have to say I'm not fond of the projected 1B in 2009 and 2010. :)
