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ESPN Suspends Bill Simmons From Twitter After <em>First Take</em> Criticism
Apparently Bill Simmons is not beyond reproach....

A Bizarre Sexting Scandal Has Cost An ESPN Partner His Job
The executive who oversees Hearst's ESPN interest (Hearst is the publishing company that owns—the often forgotten!—20 percent of the network) has quit his job amid an odd horndoggery scandal....

ESPN Is Canceling Two Best-Trick Competitions At The X Games; Does That Have Anything To Do With An Upcoming <em>Real Sports</em> Segment?
ESPN announced last night that it will no longer host a pair of best-trick competitions at the X Games: the Moto X best trick and the snowmobile best trick. ESPN is citing safety reasons and insists that it doesn't have anything to do with Caleb Moore, the snowmobiler who died a week after his cras...

ESPN Hires Ray Lewis
We knew this back in January, and now it's official: Ray Lewis is heading to ESPN. He'll join Trent Dilfer, Steve Young, and Stuart Scott for Monday night pre-game and post-game analysis. It's a big hire for ESPN, which will soon have enough ex-NFLers to fill out an alumni-game two-deep. ...


ESPN News And NBA TV Both Aired Shows Two Weeks Ago That Had Zero Nielsen Viewers
Kate Aurthur took a look around the TV world to find shows that earned Nielsen's dreaded 0.0 rating—that's the fancy Nielsen metric that means nobody watched—from a random week in late February and early March. ...

"Is It Me Or Has ESPN Been Taken Over By Wetbacks?" Viewers React To Tonight's WBC ESPN Deportes Simulcast
MLB Network has exclusive U.S. rights to broadcast the World Baseball Classic, but those rights begin and end with the English language. Lacking compelling content for a slow Sunday night, ESPN elected to use its loophole in owning Spanish-language rights to simulcast its ESPN Deportes feed of toni...

Duke Homer Dick Vitale Not A Duke Homer, According To Duke Homer
Here's a piece in today's Wall Street Journal from Ben Cohen, Duke '10, former Deadspin intern and author of An Illustrated History of Duke Basketball: A Legacy of Achievement, this column on why you shouldn't hate Duke, and this series of columns on why you should like Duke....

Bill Simmons Calls The Bayless-Sherman <em>First Take</em> Meltdown "Awful And Embarrassing"
It's been a while, but Bill Simmons has finally weighed in on something ESPN. Naturally, it's about the show that sucks up the most oxygen in Bristol, First Take. ...

Here's A 1984 Commercial Starring Chris Berman Shilling A $50 Satin ESPN Jacket
The year is 1984. ESPN has just become America's biggest cable TV channel, reaching nearly 30 million homes. It has not, however, yet shown a profit. Perhaps in an attempt to create a new revenue stream (the days of five-dollar subscriber fees being well into the future) the brains in Bristol star...

"I'm Better At Life Than You": Richard Sherman Craps All Over Skip Bayless On <em>First Take</em>
Embrace the debate, you guys! Here's a painfully awkward clip from today's edition of First Take in which Seattle Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman, who is not afraid to speak his mind, has some very unkind things to say about resident ESPN troll Skip Bayless....

Rob Parker's "Cornball Brother" Comment Is Still A Big Headache For ESPN
Well, actually, the Rob Parker cornball comment became a big headache for the CEO of ESPN's parent company, Disney. At a Disney shareholders meeting yesterday, one guy representing a conservative group, the National Center for Public Policy Research, used Parker's comment to demonstrate that ESPN is...

Fox Sports 1, The ESPN "Alternative," Starts In August, And Regis Philbin Is Involved
"Fans are ready for an alternative to the establishment," reads the press release announcing the Aug. 17 launch of Fox Sports 1. That's how big ESPN is: In the sports world, Rupert Murdoch is considered the scrappy alternative....

One More Stupid Thing About That Stupid Rick Reilly Column
Sean gave Rick Reilly's column a thorough fisking earlier, but here's one more thing. Remember: The conceit is that these are Dennis Rodman's hypothetical reports from present-day global hot spots. Emphasis mine:...

Stephen A. Smith Thinks Hockey Has Ties, Is Not As Dumb As People Who Expected Hockey Analysis From Stephen A. Smith
After weeks of increasing criticism of ESPN's less-than-comprehensive hockey coverage, the NHL finally made SportsCenter. After a 19-0-3 start, a record, the Chicago Blackhawks have finally become a "sports" thing instead of a hockey thing. But be careful what you wish for: on this morning's Sport...

Jim Valvano Gave His Moving ESPYs Speech 20 Years Ago Today
Jim Valvano's famous ESPYs speech was 20 years ago today. Valvano had bone cancer and it was unclear if he would even have the energy to appear at the ESPYs. This is what former ESPN executive John Lack said about it in Those Guys Have All The Fun:...

Keith Olbermann Wants To Work At ESPN Again; ESPN Responds By Swinging Its Dick Around
Keith Olbermann very badly wants to work for ESPN again. And today's New York Times story—written by Those Guys Have All the Fun co-author Jim Miller, who along with Richard Sandomir is working on a feature about ESPN for the paper—suggests that Olbermann is going to have a hell of a hard time findi...

Miami Heat Do The Harlem Shake, <i>SportsCenter</i> Explains It For The Stupids
The Heat released their Harlem Shake video yesterday, and as much as we'd like to call this a dead meme, it's racked up 2.3 million views in under a day. It's watchable as far as these go because of who's in it: where else but in your Stygian nightmares can you see Chris Andersen flapping towards ...

Bill Polian, Television Personality, Found Himself Surprised To Be On TV Yesterday
Veteran NFL executive Bill Polian has found new life in ESPN's arms as a pro football analyst, and he's part of the Bristol diaspora that's found its way to Indianapolis for the pro football combine that gets underway tomorrow. I don't know if it's possible to suffer jetlag without changing time z...