Lebron ad nauseam, squared

Back in my daily days, I would pay attention to His Royal Bullshitness' announcement long enough to know I could save some space on the front — below the fold — for it, with appropriate art and a headline to match.
Since I left the daily grind (funny ... I work harder and more now at a weekly than I did at the last daily I was at ....), I'll be spending 9 a.m. EST doing something constructive. Like working on the next magazine edition. Or downloading porn.

 

SI's columnist, Ian Thomsen, raises a valid point. Why would ESPN spoil its own special? Thomsen said it'd be like watching Survivor or Big Brother and knowing the ending in advance. I liken it to watching The Sixth Sense or The Crying Game for the first time yet knowing the twist ending all along.

Guess I'm watching Baseball Tonight for my sports highlights tonight. Sportscenter's going to be one hour of Lebron.

 

By the way, in The Sixth Sense, I knew that Bruce Willis was a guy all along.

 

I wouldn't be surprised if they heard the rumors of holding the news until the show, and they wanted to break it first. Of course, I also wouldn't be surprised if they simply didn't think of it. ESPN seems to do that most of the time.

 

Honestly, this whole exercise is something I can get the answer I need to 30 seconds later in the crawl across the bottom of the screen of another network and be done with it. Hell, the answer will be here in less than 15 seconds after Sir James makes his decision known.
Why do I need to watch?

 

Charles Pierce (he was one of the panelists when a friend of mine was on "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me," and I was the only one in the room who knew who he was and I got shit all weekend because I don't listen to NPR like the rest of them. But I knew who the fuck Charlie Pierce was and they didn't) has spoken.

http://www.boston.com/sports/columnists/pierce/2010/07/to_kingdom_come.html

 

Their illustration makes Pierce look like a 1970s English professor.

 

Hits it on the head.

Love this line: "Getting called "self-important" by the assembled stars of talk-radio is like getting called a drunk by the entire infield at Daytona."

 

Spoiler alert!

 

This whole NBA offseason has underscored how well ESPN can drive the sports conversation in this country. If it wasn't so nauseating, it would be impressive.

 

If there was no ESPN, and James, Wade, Bosh, etc. were all free agents, it would still be a big story and topic of conversation. ESPN can push a story way further down the field than anyone else, but stories attract attention on their own merits.

 

Not like this. Not even close.

ESPN convinces us something might happen, talks about the impact if it happens, then tells us it won't happen, the impact of it not happening and then what might happen now that the original thing didn't happen. The network does this all day, every day. It fills an incredible amount of air time with absolutely nothing and people gobble it up like it's news.