I suppose I should tell you more about the goings-on at the ESPN Upfront Tuesday. Frankly, it's all quite overwhelming and it was a challenge to keep all the stuff straight.
I do know that snowboard goddess Gretchen Bleiler was there as a celebrity schmoozer, as were Amani Toomer of Our Giants and Spike Lee.
Mr. Lee on His Knicks: "I was hoping Mark Jackson would get the job, but I'm going to give Mike D'Antoni a chance. You have to.''
Lee said he was spared much of the pain of Isiah Thomas' last campaign. He even was able to resell his pricey season tickets for the games he skipped.
"I missed half the season because I was in Italy shooting a film, so it worked out pretty good," he said.
Lee took 18 cameras to a Lakers game last month, all of them trained on Kobe Bryant. He is going to put together a film based on the footage for ESPN. "When we get it done, it's going to be a very unique vision of a basketball game."
Click below for a bunch of other stuff ESPN promoted during the presentation to ad buyers, other assorted TV industry types and a scruffy handful of business/media journalists.
1. As mentioned in an earlier post, SportsCenter will go live from 6 a.m. to 3 p.m. starting Aug. 11, intentionally timed for during the Olympics, when there will be plenty of information to report early in the morning. (No video of the action, though. NBC owns that.)
2. The other big change to SportsCenter will come next April, when ESPN's L.A. studio opens and serves as the home of the 1 a.m. episode. Around that same time ESPN will make changes to its set and graphic look back in Bristol.
3. ESPN.com is planning a re-design, and also will add original digital video, featuring "Mayne Street,'' presumably amusing vignettes starring the ESPN personality.
4. Look for a promotional assault when former SI star Rick Reilly officially becomes contractually available June 1. Reilly will do all sorts of things, including a show called "ESPN Homecoming," in which he visits and interviews sports people in their home towns. First up: Charles Barkley, in October.
5. "Time Line," a "buddy" debate show of some kind, featuring three personalities debating sports stuff.
6. Disney's Wide World of Sports complex in Orlando will be re-branded as an ESPN sports experience of some sort.
7. "College Football Live" is going to go daily 12 months a year.
8. Thirty separate films, beginning in September, 2009, to celebrate ESPN's 30th birthday.
9. More high school coverage, including involvement with the high school sports mag "Rise."
10. Plus a lot of other stuff I forget now. Let's all be surprised together as ESPN continues to roll out content and systematically march closer to world domination.
The most amusing comment of Tuesday came when Bleiler discussed her interest in battling global warning, a particular concern for someone who makes her living on snow.
Said John Skipper, ESPN's executive VP for content, "That would be a bummer for you if everything melted."
Comments (1)
It's really all coming together, if it hasn't happened yet already, ESPN is systematically ruining sports.
For just a second, I'm glad hockey isn't on the network.