The Sports Media Thread

[The_Admiral]

Yeah, I hate that stuff. Too many interviewers don't realize it's about the guest. You're always here, they're not. The guy doing mornings on our sports talk station is the worst I've ever heard at answering himself and at least three follow-ups before the poor guest can even open his mouth.

[dfwabel]

12 minutes ago, DG_Now said:

 

Bingo. That's in. With the right guest, Simmons is really good at asking a question and getting out of the way. So many podcasts hosts can't help themselves from stepping all over their guests. Woj and Lowe do this constantly: "So, [guest], tell me what you think about this teams chances this year, because I know they have a good PG, need a PF, and have good coaching, but anything could happen if they get the right breaks, so how do you react to that?" It's so much more annoying once you know they're doing it.

 

Windhorst is great. He's so earnest.

The Starters don't go stats deep and that's OK for me as the banter is great and Skeets controls it.

 

I love the LeBatard radio show as it mocks other sports radio shows w/o being "guy talk". They have the right amount of guests, and admit if a guest is bad for giving generic and sterile answers. Players and current coaches make awful radio/podcasts as they're looking for their next gig.

[DG_ThenNowForever]

I've come a long way on the Starters. Those guys are pros.

[dfwabel]

4 minutes ago, DG_Now said:

I've come a long way on the Starters. Those guys are pros.

The director could be a bit more open too others, aside from Brent Barry segment. The Drop is well done.

 

During games which they're on site everyone talks about Isaiah Thomas included them in behind the scenes NBATV stuff, yet possibly the last brother on the show was Kendall Gill losing to Leigh in a 3pt shoot out.

[2001mark]

2 hours ago, DG_Now said:

 

I actually can't listen to the Ringer's NBA podcast. All of the hosts sound like a bunch of geeks; there's not enough gravitas there. Or, more to the point, why I should care what any of those people have to say. The Ringer might have a "who are you?" problem on its hands, especially when everyone has the same kind of nerdy, over-eager timbre to their voices.

I've checked out The Shackhouse around The Masters, TPC, & US Open... otherwise, I don't really need it.  

Thankfully those guys have dialed down, & continue to do so, some big timey insider chatter - 'When I was walking #11 at Augusta on Tuesday & you know what comes next don't you'  ...uh, huh.

[Still MIGHTY]

As a big consumer of the Ringer podcasts, I agree with a lot already said. I listen to Simmons' regular pod, The Watch (TV/Movies w/ Greenwald/Ryan), Jam Session (General pop culture w/ Littman/Dobbins), Keeping it 1600 (Politics), and The Press Box (Media w/ Curtis) and I've tried just about every other option they have.

• Simmons and Littman are the best hosts, no doubt. Even when I'm only tangentially interested, like with most of Jam Session, Littman keeps the discussion tight, rolling, and interesting she's good. However on the same lines, when Simmons has a bad guest (or goes just too hard into basketball or Boston), I skip or tune out.
•  I've listened to Greenwald/Ryan since the Grantland days and enjoy most of their takes, skip over others, but they can get lost on a very specific, in-joke tangent quickly and I can zone out. (Also, I think the show was better back at Grantland when they had their weekly recaps to pull from and frame a conversation, and when they didn't have their Thrones TV show which now essentially keeps those conversations off the podcast. (And puts them through a condensed TV filter, which doesn't help that side at all either.)) And when it comes to Chris Ryan hosting other pods, he falls into the sports geek. Like I've tried their Euro2016 podcast with Ryan at the helm, and I have no idea who the other two guys are, and they definitely sound like eggheads thinking too hard about the sport. Same with his earlier stints on NBA pods.
• Keeping It 1600 has been a pretty good follow through this election season, but with the two hosts being former Obama staffers, their biases do show through and the "Well this is what happened in Obama's staff" or stories about such can really turn me off. (And that has nothing to do with the poltiics of it, just, don't be insufferable about it.)
• The Press Box can be kinda of interesting and take compelling angles, but it is a highly almost overedited show. It's not a conversation, it's dropping in voiceovers around edited clips of interviews to write a narrative. It's like an audio written feature piece. That's fine and honorable on NPR or an angle on a news website, but it's a turnoff for me. I much rather hear a organic conversation about a topic rather than a spoken article. But there's been some good topics, so I hear it out.

So there's my thoughts on the Ringer podcast network. Not that you asked.

 

I actually listen to way too many podcasts... (In addition to the Ringer shows listed, I listen to the Solid Verbal (College Football), Marek vs. Wyshynski (Hockey), Puck Soup (Hockey), Puck Podcast (Hockey), SI Media Podcast (Sports Media), Jay & Dan Podcast (Sports, etc), Jonah Keri (Mostly sports), The Nerdist (Pop Culture/Comedy), Star Wars Minute (minute by minute breakdown of the Star Wars films), How Did This Get Made? (Bad movies), Kanzenshuu (Dragonball/Z/GT/Super)... Yeah... I skip/delete/miss some, but I drive a lot. So that's what I have on usually.)

 

---

 

Anybody check out Any Given Wednesday tonight? I'm about to sit down and give it a watch.

 

[Sport]

It's irritating to me that the HBO show is making Simmons' podcasts fewer and farther between. I've wanted to hear his take on the NBA finals since Sunday. Seems like the kind of thing he'd bust out a quick podcast for regardless of how busy he is with the new show, but his last podcast was Jimmy Butler 7 days ago and I'm not listening to that. By the time he gets around to talking about the last 2 games of the Finals I probably won't be interested anymore. Also, I didn't get the coverage I was looking for from the Ringer NBA podcast on Game 7 or from the actual website. @DG_Now is right. It was a "why do I care what these people think?" problem. 

 

I tried the Ringer NFL podcast again and I couldn't get through it. Robert Mays has this rhythm...of speaking...that's...just really annOYING....and I can't sit through it. 

 

will see what Any Given Wednesday is all about tonight, but I don't have high hopes from what I've heard. Ben Affleck swears a lot when discussing deflategate. So it's gratuitous bad language and Boston sports bitching, which is absolutely the last city that has any right to bitch about anything. 

[DG_ThenNowForever]

 

Affleck has injected so much Botox in his face that his mouth can't move properly and he's slurring his words.

 

This is a bad sports take. No one is going to cry for the Pats who are the best team in sorts since 2000...I mean, "they are the best :censored:ing team in all of :censored:ing sports since 2 :censored:ing 000."

 

Get it together guys.

 

[infrared41]

1 hour ago, DG_Now said:

 

Affleck has injected so much Botox in his face that his mouth can't move properly and he's slurring his words.

 

 

That slur doesn't sound like the result of botox. That slur sounds like the oxy slur. He sounds like he's high on painkillers.

[dont care]

Ben Affleck is my power animal

[dfwabel]

3 hours ago, DG_Now said:

 

Affleck has injected so much Botox in his face that his mouth can't move properly and he's slurring his words.

 

This is a bad sports take. No one is going to cry for the Pats who are the best team in sorts since 2000...I mean, "they are the best :censored:ing team in all of :censored:ing sports since 2 :censored:ing 000."

 

Get it together guys.

 

There will be 19 more episodes of this. He gets 20 weeks/year.

 

The reviewer for "Variety" actually liked it. 

[The_Admiral]

What the hell is that outfit Bill's wearing to host a television show? What's he trying to go for there?

[2001mark]

3 hours ago, DG_Now said:

 

Affleck has injected so much Botox in his face that his mouth can't move properly and he's slurring his words.

 

This is a bad sports take. No one is going to cry for the Pats who are the best team in sorts since 2000...I mean, "they are the best :censored:ing team in all of :censored:ing sports since 2 :censored:ing 000."

 

Get it together guys.

 

 

Fact remains Brady is being suspended about 40 MLB games worth for smashing his cell phone on a charge that remains unproven.

 

Good chat everyone.

[JayMac]

Just now, 2001mark said:

 

Fact remains Brady is being suspended about 40 MLB games worth for smashing his cell phone on a charge that remains unproven.

 

Good chat everyone.

That's not it the point. Affleck sounds like a baby (an inebriated baby who curses like a sailor). No one feels sorry for the Patriots. He, among other Boston area fans, needs to be quiet about it. 

[DG_ThenNowForever]

2 hours ago, the admiral said:

What the hell is that outfit Bill's wearing to host a television show? What's he trying to go for there?

 

1997 chic. Like everything else he does.

 

EDIT: I should add that I like Simmons, think he's very smart, and appreciate a lot of the innovations he's brought to sports/pop culture writing. But there's some unintentional dorkiness about him that he could easily fix with some help. He's not a college student in Boston anymore.  His dreams have come true. He has really famous friends. He has an HBO show. He could, at the least, dress like an adult.

[The_Admiral]

No one in Boston knows how to dress. It's bordering on a national crisis. As a friend of a friend once wrote

 

Quote

Boston is like America's Bad-Taste Storm Sewer: all the worst fashion ideas from across the country flow there, stagnate, and putrefy. To be fair, it's hard to be a fashion capital when half of your population is made up of undergraduate hoodie monsters, including those unfortunate coeds who don't realize that leggings-as-pants were supposed to be paired with tops large enough to conceal their cameltoes. Yet when they graduate, they can wear their Uggs and still fit in at the country's largest frat party on Lansdowne behind Fenway, where they can take breaks between body shots to admire just how long boot-cut jeans can stay in style in one place. And any classy lady from Beantown is bound to be impressed by formal sportswear. "But Boston is the epicenter of prep style!," you say? That's true, but it's with a little extra that ends up ruining everything: Khakis!—with pleats. Boat shoes!—with socks. Knit ties!—actually, no one in Boston seems to have ever seen one of these. For the more proletarian-minded, there are the modest little burgs of Cambridge and Somerville, where everyone dresses like the proprietor of his or her very own meth lab. If you wonder how a people can live like this, well, it's Jurassic Park for fashion troglodytes: life finds a way.

[infrared41]

2 hours ago, DG_Now said:

 

1997 chic. Like everything else he does.

 

EDIT: I should add that I like Simmons, think he's very smart, and appreciate a lot of the innovations he's brought to sports/pop culture writing. But there's some unintentional dorkiness about him that he could easily fix with some help. He's not a college student in Boston anymore.  His dreams have come true. He has really famous friends. He has an HBO show. He could, at the least, dress like an adult.

 

I'm always undecided on Bill Simmons. More often than not, I like his work, but there are also times when I think he's a bigger douchebag than I am. Either way, I can't imagine him dressing in any style other than 1997 chic. It's ridiculous, but it suits him. 

[The_Admiral]

Josh Cooper Is an Irretrievable Dullard, chapter infinity:

 

Quote

 

LAS VEGAS – When Barry Trotz coached the Nashville Predators, he could have pushed a more rigid defensive system in the team’s early years after expansion.

This may have led to more wins, but Trotz knew it wouldn’t attract more fans as the Predators tried to cement themselves in a non-traditional hockey market.

 

 

Yeah, all I remember from the early 2000s is talk about that riverboat gambler Barry Trotz and his go-go Predators sacrificing wins for excitement. You are a bad writer. Never write again. Your newspaper told you they would rather have no beat writer at all than have it be you and they were right.

[CS85]

http://awfulannouncing.com/2016/close-finally-finding-sports-by-brooks-mystery-rages.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

 

Remember Sports By Brooks?  Interesting little mystery.

[DG_ThenNowForever]

Is anybody reading The Ringer? I got to the site and I'm immediately overwhelmed -- especially on mobile. There's no organization; it's just CONTENT CONTENT CONTENT with no unifying theme other than a general sense of snark.

 

I did read their NBA free agent preview and it was pretty dumb. The comments (!) weren't very supportive either.

 

The Simmons profile of Pat Riley was good, however, with the exception of putting Brad Stevens on the same level as Gregg Popovich -- though I bet that's just Simmons being insufferable for insufferability's sake.

 

The site isn't in my rotation yet, in large part because I don't really get it. Besides being the new Bill Simmons thing, I don't know why it exists. SBNation is generally measured analysis. Deadspin is snark that's sometimes funny, plus the race talk that I love. Bleacher Report works hard to shed its slideshow past. Yahoo Sports has Woj and those terrible autoplay videos with that big guy in bad clothes talking baseball. ESPN is ESPN. What the hell is The Ringer?