Game Two

This coach is in the title game for a second year in a row...

There was a strange dichotomy in the two NCAA Final Four games played last night. In game one, there were two gritty, mid-major teams that few expected to be there. In game two, there were a couple of storied programs with long but sordid histories. It made for a strange rooting dynamic, in game one we felt sad that one of these gallant underdogs had to lose. In game two, we felt perturbed one of those cheaters was going to win.

Who do you root for one when on one bench is a coach who has had to vacate both of his previous two Final Four appearances and on the other side is a coach who the NCAA has cited for multiple violations, including lack of institutional control? Blech.

The narrative was undermined and we predict the television ratings reflect it.

Those texts will haunt you

A thought from the Australian Open tennis tournament, do not put anything in a text message that you would not say to a person's face. Kim Clijsters reminded former Australian tennis star turned sideline reporter, Todd Woodbridge, of that axiom very publicly. The story goes like this. Woodbridge had sent a text to thirty-nine year old Australian doubles player Rennae Stubbs. Stubbs, a female, apparently felt some solidarity with Clijsters, the first mom to win a Grand Slam tournament since Evonne Goolagong Cawley at Wimbledon in 1980, so she showed her the message. Woodbridge had sent a text saying Clijsters looked "especially busty" and "grumpy" suggesting perhaps she was "pregnant" again. Clijsters called him out with grace and humor, courtside and on tv, after her next match. Watch below.

LeBron, looking for suggestions

LeBron James is apparently looking for suggestions. LeBron utilizes the methodology of communication between icon and the masses that has become the norm in post-post modern society, the commercial. It transcends the press conference because of the limitless opportunities for staging and setting that a commercial presents. Moreover, it is a one-way channel of communication, no nagging questions from the fourth estate can be heard...

LeBron himself asks the only question, over and over, "What should I do?" and despite all the options the Nike marketing people have offered him, it appears quite clear, LeBron does not quite know what he should do.





Here, in one societal reply to the once and former King James, Eric Cartman asks himself the same question.

Mysterion Rises
Tags: SOUTH
PARKEric Cartman,Mysterion,more...

Streaming hockey

Our local Carolina Hurricanes are leading the N.H.L. into a new 21st century era and model of sports broadcasting delivery. The New York Times reports that the Canes are live-streaming all of their preseason games on broadband this month; by using their in-house video feed and the play-by-play from their radio broadcasts. The NHL has seen the light, the groundswell of positive response from the fanbase, and plans to follow suit. The Canes home market is the technologically savvy triangle between Durham, Raleigh and Chapel Hill, N.C. The N.H.L.'s chief operating officer, John Collins, says the league is close to an agreement under which many of its 24 U.S. based teams would provide broadband and wireless live-streaming of games in local markets.

Read more here in the Triangle Business Journal.

Joe Buck's an ass

Sanctimonious ass Joe Buck was totally embarrassed on his first episode of his pathetic sports show. Buck is a two faced loser. He is the very same man who excoriated Randy Moss on national television for a mooning gesture offered to the Green Bay Packer fan base at Lambeau Field. His first episode of his new show he hosts, in an attempt to push the humor envelope, he features live Artie Lang stand-up comedy. Lang is a regular on the toilet humor imbued, profanity laced Howard Stern program. He let rip with a segment that made HBO blush. Buck, class act that he is, had his two young daughters in the audience. Hypocrite, through and through, Buck after the television show did ten extra minutes of live podcast with Lang, then the next day claimed he was shocked and appalled by Lang's humor.

Ratings way up

Lebron didn't win, but the networks sure did. TNT reported that a whopping 8.6 million viewers tuned in on average to the Eastern Conference Finals. As loyal readers know, the Clarion Content is a firm believer that the Nielsen ratings are bogus. Their number fails to account for anyone who watched this game in a public place (eg. a sports bar) or at a friend's house (counting 'households' skews their data). Regardless TNT had to be in a mood to celebrate. Viewership was up 37% over its 2008 conference finals coverage!

Jay Bilas

What happened to Jay Bilas? Was it just a year or two ago that the Clarion Content was in love with his professorial style? Musing about his future political career?

How did he become so annoying so fast?

We know we are not alone because we have had or heard more than two sports bar conversations making the same complaint. It might have something to do with the raising of his profile. After all three to five years ago he was a minor deity in the ESPN pantheon of sports analysts, far off on the edge of the page of the family tree. This weekend for the NCAA tournament he is paired with Dick Enberg, whose resume is longer than the Old Testament (which is about the era his career started.)

The Clarion Content is not sure if the fame is what is causing it, but Bilas's tone has become pedantic and lecturing. He is like listening to the atrocious Tim McCarver and Joe Buck. Bilas is frequently spouting cliches in too slow a voice with a tone that says 'I am bringing you revelation,' "You can't foul a jump shooter." Wow, Jay, you got any more new ones?

It was an epic game

Or so we hear anyway... Last night's classic AFC East battle between the New York Jets and the New England Patriots highlighted two of the NFL's biggest problems. For a league that is at least tied for the best operated professional sports league in North America, this may sound like nitpicking, but they were kind of major issues.

Issue one, we didn't see the game. The Durham, NC based Clarion Content offices do not get Direct TV. Our cable system Time Warner isn't getting on with the NFL Network folks who had the exclusive broadcast rights to last night's humdinger. Hence, we were left to listen to it on the radio. Long time Clarion fave Ian Eagle did a bang up job, admirably assisted by the just gruff enough, Denny Green. It was a delight to listen to, but for a game that big, it might have been nice to be able to see it, too.

Issue two, the game was decided by a coin flip! A freaking coin flip! How ludicrous. The NFL overtime rules have long been derided as based on luck. Unlike the college football overtime, there is no guarantee that both teams will see the ball. The Jets won the coin flip, went down the field and won the game with a field goal. Had the Patriots won the coin toss, odds are they win the game. They had just gone down the field at the end of regulation and scored a touchdown with one second left, in OT they would have only needed a field goal. Both teams were scoring at will. It was disappointing to have a game this good decided that arbitrarily.

For those of you who also did not see the game, NFL.com has the highlights here.

How many times?

The Clarion Content cannot believe how many times in the last two weeks we have had to address the failure of television providers to show viewers live sporting events. When we read yet another story of this kind of snafu, our reaction was along the lines of, "You have got to be kidding!?!"

But no, they weren't. Here is the story, monopolist and convicted bandwidth denier Comcast Cable, who controls the airwaves in the greater Philadelphia metropolitan area lost the Phillies telecast of Game Three. Comcast went down across the Philadelphia area, parts of central Pennsylvania and South Jersey for 20 minutes in the middle of the game. They lost coverage with spectacularly bad timing for Phillies fans, causing them to miss Chase Utley and Ryan Howard's back to back 6th inning homers.

Congratulations on a craptastic job, Comcast!

Rich Stadium power outage

Just a day after the Clarion Content blasted TBS and Major League Baseball for the snafu that prevented them from getting the first inning of Game 1 of the American League Championship Series on the air another sports power failure hit. This one felt rather more like bad luck than piss-poor planning.

Three small mylar balloons became entangled in wires across from the Buffalo Bills' Rich Stadium thirty minutes before game time. Power failed throughout the stadium. CBS was unable to broadcast the game. The Jumbotron did not work. Time was kept on the field, the play clock was signaled to the quarterbacks by hand. There were no television timeouts as the game was unable to be aired without power to the stadium. The crowd cheered without prompting as the usual electronic noise was not pumped through the stadium. The teams sat in darkened locker rooms before the game and at halftime.

Power was restored during the third quarter. Television coverage resumed shortly thereafter and the Bills won with a late goal-line stand and two turnovers by Chargers QB, Phillip Rivers.

TBS screws the pooch

Turner Broadcasting Systems or TBS screwed up big time last night. Somehow they managed to cut the power to both their router and their back-up router carrying the American League Championship Series Game 6. Well done, geniuses. This meant nowhere in the country were the first twenty minutes of the game available on television. Sports bars everywhere faced near riots, as TBS showed "The Steve Harvey Show," and ran a crawl on the bottom of the screen saying, "We are experiencing technical difficulties."

Of course, Bud Selig's force of used cars salesmen had their collective heads up their asses again, claiming that they were, "unaware there was a problem until the broadcast failed to come on the air." That is Major League Baseball's administration in a nutshell for you; clueless, helpless and oblivious. Good work nimrods!