Looks like we're not the only ones who think WWL is full of it

Excellent Newsweek article, presumably for the next issue.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19734725/site/newsweek/

 

Real good article. ESPN made its own bed and has enjoyed for many years now laying in that bed having sex with itself over and over.

 

(ESPN's overreliance on underqualified ex-jocks to fill its analyst ranks is a grating example.)
I've never heard it put better. Damn, Devin Gordon nailed pretty much all ESPN's major foibles. This is a great article.

 

The Newsweek article lost me when it said "Playmakers" was well-regarded.

I'll admit it was a guilty pleasure, but I didn't think it was a critical success.

 

If we're criticizing ESPN, why would you call it the WWL?

 

I like the first commenter's point, though.

 

Very well written story. I just wish there was more of it. It reads as if some editor whacked it suddenly and without much thought. It could have gone on for another 30 inches and it wouldn't have bothered me. "Like chewing on Styrofoam" is a terrific image.

 

I ran across another one taking a stern criticism of ESPN over their treatment of the NHL. The point the author makes is that it wasn't the NHL who dropped the WWL to go to Versus. It was ESPN who was trying to dump hockey before the strike made it easier on them.

Mike Greenberg and Bill Simmons gets ripped here as well.

http://thesituationist.wordpress.com/2007/07/02/negative-press-is-espn-is-killing-the-national-hockey-league-by-influencing-public-attitudes/

 

I understand that Who's Now is supposed to be a dog days filler. We put a lot of crap in our paper no one reads in July, especially since we have no pro baseball anywhere close to us.

But my God. It sucks really bad. Between Keyshaun talking about sports he's way underqualified to talk about, to Stuart Scott drooling over what women Derek Jeter has dated, to Wilbon and Herbstriet seeing their credibility take a hit by taking part in this. It is indeed like chewing on styrofoam.

 

I think the notion that Bill Simmons is "influential" is as scary a proposition as I can imagine.

 

That would be sarcasm, right? And a nod to their masturbatory, self-referential douchebaggery, no?