Dan Patrick's SI debut

It was about the big annual race in Vegas.

 

Macdaddy,

You're wrong.
There's no box to check that states: Sure! Just charge my credit card whenever my subscription runs out.

 

I finally got my SI today (I think my postman reads it first! or my wife, who gets the mail, hides from me when she's mad).

Anyway, that Dan Patrick piece is insulting Rushin's work and space that came before DP.

I could have wrote what Patrick wrote.

What Patrick wrote is a joke.

 

If SI really wants to hire some Patrick guy worth reading, they ought to get SpongeBob's sidekick.

 

I ordered ESPN the Magazine a few years ago when my boss' daughter was selling magazine subscriptions for her church. I think I opened one issue, the steroids one. Rest ===> circular file.

 

VERY depressing to read what they've wasted their money to have Patrick do.

I really thought SI was on the comeback trail . . . take away a Michael Silver, replace with Lee Jenkins and Damon Hack. Take away a Rick Reilly, replace with Selena Roberts and a mob of solid, talented people.

The back page columns have been ragged (the one - by Price? - about Super Bowl TVs was unimpressive, while Roberts has been disjointed so far) . . . and now Patrick writes something that is basically another "The Beat." Yay, more "look at ME!!!" and celebrity stuff.

Still enough very good to great writers there in Dr. Z, Verducci, and yeah, I enjoy Grant Wahl's ability to go from soccer to college hoops, but those can all be had online.

Damn. I really thought they were finally going away from trying to cater to the 12-year-olds that ESPN the Magazine has claimed, but this use of Patrick indicicates otherwise. If they're gonna get such an expensive guy to be part of their magazine, and then hand a page to him with which to do THAT, then they obviously remain interested in tapping the children's market.

 

The best part is the photo of DP they use at the front of the mag introducing him to readers. He's talking on a microphone, but looks like he's about to take a dump.

 

No law says he can't do both at the same time.

 

Seriously, how could it not be?
Web hits measures your audience.
A web hit means people are looking at it.
No hit means they are not.
You put a pigeon story in there so, what, six people who write for a living can say what a great work of art it was? At what point do you stop pretending this is something other than a business?

 

I agree with you 94%.
But the 6% that disagrees despises your way of thinking with all of its soul.

 

It seems DP is all about name dropping and "look who I talked to."
His radio show often had B-list celebrities. The point of it seemed to be "Hey, I'm sort of 'in' with a section of Hollywood."
Who is that kind of stuff supposed to impress?

 

Wonder how many Web hits the first Watergate story would have received?

"Hey, Bob and Carl, let that story go. The readers aren't into it."