Six Flags, under Shapiro's leadership, has absolutely tanked. One might call it the "Teammates" of amusement park franchises.

Two years ago, when Snyder began building his stake in the company, it traded near $12 a share. In mid-November, after the company missed Wall Street expectations, the stock dropped to $1.91 and has mostly stayed there.

Securities lawyers say that a share price that low creates a perilous situation for Snyder. MarketWatch, among other business media, speculated that the company is "distressed" and listed it among those that may have to file for bankruptcy in 2008.

One suspects those at ESPN who remember the Shapiro regime are shedding few tears.

Snyder's Six Flags Sinking Fast [Washingtonian]

We bring this up to, well, to dance a bit on the grave of former ESPN head dog Mark Shapiro. Last year, with much fanfare — and a famously delirious media conference call featuring Josh Elliot, Thea Andrews and Stephen A. Smith — Shapiro launched three shows: "ESPN Hollywood," "Quite Frankly With Stephen A. Smith" and "Classic Now." With last week's announcement that all original programming would be booted from ESPN Classic, all vestiges of the Shapiro regime are officially deleted from the Bristol hard drive. Which is a shame, because we really thought "Teammates" had long-term growth potential.

Shapiro, who now plays Bugs Bunny for Daniel Snyder at "Six Flags," was not well-liked by his co-workers, and it's hard to imagine anyone who doesn't enjoy life with John Skipper and Norby! considerably more. Amazing, though: He had such a touch for programming.

Yet "Cold Pizza," somehow, still soldiers on.

ESPN Hollywood Bites The Dust [Deadspin]

For the month of October, if you want to cut in line for a ride at Six Flags Great American in Gurnee, Illinois, all you have to do is eat a live cockroach. You have to gulp down the three-inch horned cockroach, live, and then you and three others will be able to hop to the front. It's really that simple.

Mock if you will, but there's no way "Quite Frankly" wouldn't be more entertaining if Stephen A. had to scarf down live bugs at the end of every episode.

Eat A Cockroach, Go To The Front Of The Line [Associated Press]

We also hear people from the non-Bristol camp at ESPN are concerned that the power grab is now official, and everything is becoming even more and more Bristol-ed. Stay tuned.

Naw, whom are we kidding? Nobody's actually watching.

Some fun notes from the story:

• The high-profile cellphone deal ESPN signed with Sprint/Nextel has some people nervous. ""You have to ask yourself how much growth will be left if they keep spending like this," says one analyst.
• Most people don't think The Outdoor Life Network won't be a legitimate challenger until it gets the NFL. Yeah, Paul Tagliabue's gonna be all over that one.
• ESPN revenues this year could hit $5 billion. And that's just from sales of Simmons' book.
• Before deciding to work with Daniel Snyder, former content head Mark Shapiro had received feelers to head NBC News, which is terrifying; not that we wouldn't like to see Matt Lauer and Katie Couric on "Teammates," mind you.

Favorite quote:

On any given day at the main ESPN campus in Bristol, Conn., now encompassing 100 acres dotted with dozens of satellite dishes, you might find former All-Star second baseman and Baseball Tonight host Harold Reynolds waiting in line for brick-oven pizza in the fancy staff cafe, or SportsCenter anchor Stuart Scott looking for someone to spot him on the bench press in the state-of-the-art gym.

There's precious little detail on Shapiro's "replacement," John Skipper, whom, try as we might, we've yet to find anyone to say anything bad about. "One of the smartest, most competent guys I've ever worked with," one ESPNer tells us. Well, jeez, that's no fun.

In The Zone [Business Week]

We hear whispers that Paige — a longtime favorite of now-departed ESPN head honcho Mark Schapiro, the man credited with keeping Paige on the show — chose to skip the huge, 300-person going-away shindig for Shapiro last Thursday. We hear he purposely decided to bypass the party because he was not going to be allowed to bring his girlfriend.

We think it's because the hors d'oeuvres weren't Alpo brand.

Yeah, Red Smith Totally Used To Eat Weird Crap [Deadspin]

But what of ESPN's culture? Will the programming continue to skew toward VH-1's? Will there be more "reality" shows — a strange notion for a television station based around live events with no predetermined outcome — like the upcoming Bob Knight walk-on show be the new linchpin? Will the building-up of ESPN2-exclusive programming continue? Will someone please do something about Mario Lopez?

The future of those known to have Shapiro-favored status is also in question, including Skip Bayless, Stuart Scott and, most notoriously, Stephen A. Smith. How long can money be spent on a show with lower ratings than informercials? ESPN will remain the major force on the sports landscape, thanks in very large part to Shapiro's leadership, but there's still a mindset that, in leaving to work for Daniel Snyder (of all people), Shapiro is bolting just in time. After all, the only way to go, at this point, is down.

The Doc Is Not In [NY Post] (second item)

MISSES

• "Quite Frankly With Stephen A. Smith". Whatever your thoughts on Stephen A. — though we suspect we know which direction most of you lean — this whole enterprise has been an unmitigated disaster. Launched with unprecedented fanfare (they were running ads for this on Salon), the show is a ratings black hole, Smith clearly struggles with sports that aren't the NBA and the show's awkward transitions are proof he desperately needs a Greg Anthony-type to play off. Scariest part about this: He has a four-year contract for the show, an albatross if there ever were one.
• Everything PTI Hath Wrought. Once the formula was established by Kornheiser and Wilbon, Shapiro and company proceeded to run it into the ground, turning every bit of "original programming" into something from VH-1's "Best Week Ever." The worst is "Around the Horn," which encourages former journalists to make idiots out of themselves. More on this in a bit.
• "ESPN Hollywood" and "Teammates." The former is the television equivalent of Page 3, and it's pretty clear how that has turned out. "Teammates" more often looks like it belongs on Logo than on ESPN.
• All The Futzing With "Baseball Tonight." Once, "Baseball Tonight" was the end-all-be-all for baseball fans, a place where Peter Gammons, Jayson Stark and Harold Reynolds broke down the games' details with wit and precision. Now John Kruk and Larry Bowa compare wads of chewing tobacco.
• Skip Bayless. We suspect even Skip is confused by Shapiro's dogged loyalty.
• The General Degrading Of The Profession Of Sports Journalism. Writers whose work readers and fans had admired for years were put on television and instructed to act like chimps. Credits were given for confrontation and volume of one's voice rather than reporting skills or even grasp of the issues. To stay on the air and earn their nice TV paychecks, longtime sportswriters were forced to keep upping the ante just to make sure the golden goose stayed alive. The logical outcome of this was realized yesterday on "Cold Pizza" — another Shapiro misstep — when Woody Paige ate dogfood live on the air.

(Later: The close of our series, a look at the future without Shapiro.)

First, a look at his HITS:

• "Pardon The Interruption." You can hate this show for what it spawned — and we'll get into that a little later today — but the combination of Kornheiser and Wilbon continues to enlighten and amuse. Imagine if it had been Kornheiser and Mike Lupica, as it has been rumored was the original combination. (We've often wondered if Lupica, once the golden boy of those middle-aged sportswriters, looks around at the TV success of Kornheiser, Albom, Feinstein, et al, and dreams of stabbing them in their sleep.)
• "Monday Night Football" on ESPN. We're all terrified of Joe Theismann as the NFL's flagship analyst, and on the whole it will be strange that you'll have to pay for cable to watch MNF. But it was an aggressive move that ensures the network will remain at the forefront of televised sports for years to come.
• "Playmakers" and "3". The other original movies and shows were clunkers, but despite the NFL's protests, "Playmakers" scored big ratings, and pretty much everyone we know back in Southern Illinois owns "3" on DVD.
• Dropping the NHL. The extended labor woes for the league lowered the value of any possible deal to the point that an obscure cable network specializing in fishing shows and "Survivor" reruns was able to scoop him the remnants. You could make an argument that the Outdoor Life Network could use the NHL to build a challenge to ESPN's supremacy ... but we're not even sure NHL commish Gary Bettman could say that with a straight face.

Have any thoughts on Shapiro's hits or misses of your own? Let us know at tips@deadspin.com.

The Doc Is Not In [NY Post] (second item)

(Later today: The Misses)

Putting aside the obvious "Fear Factor" comparisons — we're not sure how well "Cold Pizza" comes across in that matchup, though, for the record — we're still trying to figure out how the segment was even imagined. They were saying something about the San Diego Padres, and how they were either dog food or bologna, and it wasn't making any sense, and then, out of nowhere, Woody Paige started eating dog food. We didn't imagine this, did we?

You can't find this kind of analysis on the Outdoor Life Network, that's for damned sure. Hey, when's ESPN head honcho Mark Shapiro leaving again? Saturday? Thank God.

"Cold Pizza" [Official Site]
Hometown Columnist Woody Paige [Deadspin]

ESPN head-honcho-in-impending-exile Mark Shapiro decreed:

"He phoned and said that he wasn't going to show up," Mark Shapiro, ESPN's Vice President of Programming and Production, told SI.com on Tuesday night, "and when he didn't, he was in breach of his contract and we terminated him."

You think that's cold? Wait until Shapiro, in his new job as head of Six Flags, gets a hold of Yosemite Sam.

Alberts Fired By ESPN [Fanblogs]

Bristol Breakup [NY Daily News]
Smith's Ratings Poor [NC Times]

But we have to ask again: What kind of gimmicks will Shapiro bring to Six Flags (and, by extension, the Looney Tunes franchise)? Our guesses:

Daffy Duck and Bugs Bunny on Teammates?
Wile E. Coyote's "ticketing-time-bomb life."
"First and 10 With Elmer Fudd and Foghorn Leghorn."
"Quite Frankly With Yosemite Sam."

Shapiro To Leave ESPN October 1 [MediaWeek]

"It's unfortunate that our viewers would find a reality series on an explosive figure like Mike Tyson uncompelling," Shapiro says. "[But] a life of caring for underprivileged people, as [Tyson] says he's going to do, just isn't as riveting as the ticketing-time-bomb life."

And we wonder why Tyson keeps doing crazy things. It's the only way people like Shapiro will pay him.

Is Allen Iverson Next Reality TV Star? [SI.com]

The hot topic this week is "Quite Frankly With Stephen A. Smith," which Solomon suggests was overhyped. Money quote: "I saw more attitude from Smith than opinion." Really.

Can Smith's Show Live Up To The Hype? [ESPN]