ESPN And Its Lack Of Properly Ordered Ducks

Since a lot of you probably weren't working on Monday — like we were — you might have missed this: ESPN announced that it wants to be the MySpace of sports by hosting fan sports blogs on its site come September. Ignoring the failed MLBlogs model on this — though it kinda seems like they're just stealing The Sporting News' business plan — and looking past, for now, all the things you're not going to be able to write about on "your" blog, let's instead look at the announcement itself. And, specifically, Bill Simmons' involvement, or lack thereof.

The story was released by AdAge, and in its writeup, it mentioned a "betting contest created and hosted by Page Two columnist Bill Simmons." Whatever your thoughts on Simmons, it seemed surprising that he'd be involved with such an endeavor; it was strange seeing him play the Trey Wingo ESPN Mobile shill. And, apparently, it was a surprise to Simmons too; it appears we had scooped him on his own news. He wrote into us, saying, "I'm confused, I haven't agreed to do anything yet - maybe they've had me cloned?"

Which means that ESPN was out touting a service on their new feature without actually nailing down a deal with the name writer to do it. And he had to find out about it from ... a blog.

Yeah. This ESPN/MySpace thing is going to be fun.

ESPN Wants Your Sports Blogs [Deadspin]