media Page 203 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Mike Patrick Has A Plaxidental Brain Fart On Air
ESPN play-by-play man Mike Patrick made a groan-inducing little comment during last night's Georgia/Michigan State Capital One Bowl, but does not appear to be in jeopardy of publicly apologizing for it....
Worst Columnist Predictions Of 2008 ... With Gratuitous Jay Mariotti
Sure it made for good copy when Terence Moore of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution wrote back in April that "The Falcons just blew it" by drafting Matt Ryan. Did he think that wouldn't come back on him?...
Waxing Off Writer Scrooged By New England SportsNet
So it seems that one of our Waxing Off writers got into hot water with Comcast New England over something she wrote for us. You fired Cameron! You bastards!...
The Year In...Sports Fella
So, the next nine days will be chock full of end-of-year retrospectives. We'll do our own as well. Today: Bill Simmons...
Detroit Columnist Manages To Piss Off Just About Everyone
Detroit News columnist Rob Parker says he was just joking when he asked Lions head coach Rod Marinelli if he "wishes his daughter had married a better defensive coordinator?" Wow. Some joke....
Michael Jordan On Verge Of Getting Married Again?
So says the remarkably unreliable gossip hounds at Media Takeout who've "caught wind" that "word on the street" is MJ and girlfriend Yvette Prieto are about to get hitched....
The ESPN Home Page Redesign Is Here
Soon after Christmas, heading over to the ESPN home page will be a slightly different experience. Hey, who moved the furniture? And where's my ESPN Featured Comment of the Day?...
Bill Simmons Conspiracy Theories And The State Of Edginess At The WWL (Update)
We get all sorts of amazing Bill Simmons conspiracy theories sent to the email box each week....
ESPN Backs Up Ed Werder: "We Stand By Our Reporting"
Even though Terrell Owens went out of his way to single out the supposedly "made up" reporting of ESPN's Cowboy specialist Ed Werder, the WWL is sticking by their mustachioed menace....
That's What The Zamboni Is For, I Guess
The old expression "I'll tear off your head and shit down your neck" is alive and well in the NHL, or at least with the Boston Globe web site, where unfortunate typos make the readin' fun!...
This Is Why Conlin Rules
Even if he hates the pamphleteers: "If the printed page dies, there is no denying that the fatal wounds have been self-inflicted. There was an elitist smugness even in the press boxes of the 1960s, when Howard Cosell was just a radio nobody hustling for interviews in clubhouses filled with sports wr...
Fascinating Things You Probably Don't Want to Know: Skip Bayless Is Ripped
Skip Bayless is easy to despise for many reasons, most of which stem from the fact that he walked away from a very encouraging career as a print journalist for a new, more lucrative one as...whatever he does by senselessly arguing on "First Take." But would it make him more or less tolerable if you ...
Stacey Dales Out At ESPN, Turns in Long Pantsuits and Microphone
According to an emailer, college basketball and football sideline reporter Stacey Dales could not reach a contract agreement with ESPN for 2009, so she'll no longer be chasing down coaches and players for the WWL. ESPN has confirmed that rumor....
Ax Drops At Sports Illustrated; Layoff Rumors Include Hoffer, Wolff ... And Dr. Z?
The massive layoffs that had been hanging over five magazine groups at Time Inc. have come to fruition, and as promised in the infamous Nov. 10 layoff memo, one of the hardest-hit was Sports Illustrated. Rumored to be among those leaving — and not of their own accord — are senior writer Richard Hoff...
Josh Levin's Fascination With Rick Reilly's Tooth Jokes Is Oddly Captivating
When I initially took over this site there was a lot of discussion amongst former and current editors about doing a weekly feature devoted entirely to Rick Reilly's ESPN column. It would be too easy to just pick apart its contents FJM-style (R.I.P), but given his hubris, his enormous contract, and t...
SI's Dr. Z Recovering After Two Strokes
This is sad news from the sports media world. Paul Zimmerman, the grouchy football columnist better known as Dr. Z, suffered two strokes in late November and is currently on a leave of absence while he recovers. He'll survive, but how it'll affect the rest of his writing career is still undetermined...
The Curious Case of Fred Hickman
Most of you probably don't remember Fred Hickman's somewhat brief tenure as an ESPN anchor and talking head and most of you also were probably unaware that the man is no longer working for them. Hickman was signed on from the YES network in 2004 to a significant contract to come over to the WWL, due...
Exploring the ESPN Business Model (Hint: It Involves Swimming In Piles of Cash)
By now everyone knows that ESPN paid $100 million more than Fox could afford for the rights to the BCS games beginning in 2009. Cementing, to a great degree, ESPN's status as a post-season college football monopoly (they now control 29 of the 34 bowl games). And we've also noted that this increasing...
The Creative Impasse Between Bill Simmons and ESPN Appears To Be Over
The rumor about Bill Simmons "quitting" his B.S. Report podcast on ESPN due to restrictive over-editing policies were apparently overblown, for today the B.S. Report has miraculously reappeared. The one noticeable change to it is the new pre-show disclaimer from the Sports Fella himself that states ...
ESPN Mag To Get a Sharapova-cized Makeover
Each year, ESPN "The Magazine" trots out special issues like the goofy jocks-are-in-charge issue one when they let a professional athlete play editor for the week. (Remember one year Matt Leinart did this. Yeah, it'll probably be a long time before he gets on the cover again.) This year the mag has...