Absurd

Would you like to read something absurd?

• Harkening back to Open, here a very controversial story out of Seattle. Apparently, a lesbian couple was disturbing the family setting of a Mariners game by their public displays of affection. One of the women was upset that one of the Safeco Field ushers asked her to stop kissing her date because a fan felt uncomfortable.
  
  Oh boy.
  
  When I read it, it brought up a somewhat-secondary issue next to the continued homophobia in our world. That code of conduct that is read prior to every game... does anyone listen?

How about two!

• That controversial study about how referees' calls favor white or fair-skinned NBA players to black players has reared its ugly head again. Daniel Engber of Slate Magazine discusses how that study, along with several other trials involving racial identity have an affect on the motions of the game, especially with officials.
  
  So much for just enjoying Game 1 of the Finals tonight in Boston just on its own merit.

Let's go for the trifecta!

• One name, many opinions. Jason Whitlock.

Go to town on this stuff. Thoughts, questions, solutions. Anything.

Rage

Since I was a kid – okay, so it wasn’t terribly long ago – there was one person on television that I had strong, but unshared admiration for. It wasn’t so much that I understood the topics or knew where the story began, but I was drawn to the style that he spoke to the audience. Without openly flaunting his knowledge or tossing sound bites to move stories along, his newscasts presented the differing sides of conflicts while introducing unfamiliar issues to a mass audience.

At ten years old, I may have learned as much about the world from Peter Jennings as from any teacher or textbook at I.S. 131 in The Bronx.

Over the past week, I’ve been reading a book about him that was published last fall called Peter Jennings: A Reporter’s Life. More of an anthology of reflections about the late anchorman than a biography crafted during his career, the book chronicles his career from aspiring to follow his father’s footsteps as Canada’s most beloved newsman in the fifties and sixties to an icon in his own right. You could look to his experience in the Middle East or his news specials featuring children to see that Jennings’ mission was to present as many sides to a story as possible, even if it challenges our sensibilitues and experiences. Yet, in an interview sourced in the book shows, he showed great concerns about the direction of the media industry:

“Maybe it started with the Robert Bork nomination to the Supreme Court. Maybe it was the 1988 political campaign using the image of Willie Horton, or the Clarence Thomas hearings, Whitewater, the Clinton sex scandal, the Clinton impeachment, the 2000 election. Whatever it may have been, the public dialogue today is often rude and vulgar to the point where I begin to think it’s shameful. It is true that we have been through ugly cycles before. But today I think that it is made much worse by the constant need for the drama of conflict that many broadcasters seem to demand. Our national conversation is very often a shouting match – and too much of it is infected with venom.

“I am not naive and I do not imagine a world in which we all get along. And I do not think we need to single out the right or the left, the talk radio ranters or the angry columnists. To some extent we are all culpable – including the staid center,
which if only by its silence is not without responsibility… Our modern communications system and other technologies have increased the volume of public argument to an unholy racket. Our national conversation sometimes feels
impoverished as a result… Civility doesn’t just promote decency; it also leads
to a fairer exchange of ideas and a greater chance of finding workable solutions
to the kinds of problems we face.”

While it would be strange to think that the words from one of the most revered journalists of all time would apply to the sports arena, they struck a chord in relation to the national and local conversations that take place daily. After reading it over and over again, so many questions regarding the sports media industry came to mind. I wondered where the rage came from in sports media. I wondered when did someone’s performance on the field lead to diatribes about his personal life. I wondered when did reporting the goings-on with sports become an athletic-themed version of the Geraldo At Large or the Rush Limbaugh Show.

Much of the venom that Jennings described comes from economics. There is no doubt that the growing divide between multimillion dollar professional athletes and fans has played a significant role. The idea that someone can make more money in a day as an elite athlete than a teacher does in a year keeps the distance fairly lengthy. Yet, when the folks that travel the globe to cover what’s essentially someone’s typical day at work, something more is added to the fray.

Whether we care to admit it or not, most – if not, all – of us wanted to be athletes, playing at the highest level possible. We wanted the adulation, the last name and our favorite numbers on the back of some jersey and the contract offers to go along with the joys of winning and the pains of losing. Some of us may have played at some point, but we’re holding cameras and voice recorders to those who are playing now as a way of life. We learn about the lives of these players and some of us develop relationships with them based on personal interaction and an understood professional agreement between media and subject. As we learn about these players, we begin to find those quarks, those words, those looks that remind us that they are emotional beings as well as physical marvels. It disappoints many in the business, especially those of us who have never played beyond junior high school.

It disappoints because the men and women who look to be above the flaws of flesh and blood are still just flesh and blood. The disappointment turns into judgments on his or her character. The judgments can become a nasty discourse where Terrell Owens, despite his gross shortcomings, can be mocked for anything genuine that he does, such as his emotional postgame comments about Tony Romo. The judgments against the surly persona of Barry Bonds become a near-decade of vitriol coming from coast-to-coast. The judgments become manifestos of the usual “he’s not worth that much money” line of at least half of the players in the NBA.

The judgments make stars out of some columnists like Jason Whitlock, Skip Bayless and Mike Lupica.

Unlike many of the political jousts that Jennings and many past and present journalists have narrated, these subjects aren’t directly responsible for money towards stem-cell research or alleviating homelessness in America’s cities. As much as we love and consume sports, at times, we protest too much. Sure, the media is responsible for much of the tenor towards the players and the business of sport. Yet, it is also responsible for not doing enough to remind fans that there has to be a separation between the job and the person. For as much as athletes do contribute to society in terms of entertainment and community outreach, their job functions do not reflect the human condition as much as those you’ll see on the evening news.

Before playing Game 7 of the 2005 NBA Finals, Rasheed Wallace, the forward/center for the Detroit Pistons who is known for an irascible demeanor on the court, was asked about the pressure of this winner-take-all game against the San Antonio Spurs. Maybe the media at the stadium clamored for him to say something that would invite a fine from the league or bulletin board material for the Spurs. Yet, in the spirit of the day, he said;

“Pressure? This isn't pressure and this is not pain. Afghanistan, Iraq and that other place, Croatia and Bosnia - now, that is pressure. This ain't nothing but a little hoops.”

It was hard to debate the next day on the local sports shows.

Coolhunting

In 2003, I ran into this book called No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies, written by Canadian activist and journalist Naomi Klein. Klein is known as one of the most vocal critics of the corporate umbrella and No Logo* became a significant manuscript for the anti-globalization movement. The book centered on branding and its impact on the world, most notably the largest brands such as Nike, Pepsi, McDonalds, Wal-Mart and MTV. Klein attempts to discuss how branding has ruined many third-world countries while it has enabled companies to try to pull the wool over consumers’ eyes through elaborate public relation campaigns and governmental assistance.

This book seems to be a contradiction to my undergraduate education at Babson College, and every single way it is. Whether I completely agreed with the book’s points is another matter completely, but I walked away with awareness of a business phenomenon called coolhunting. Coolhunting describes the efforts from marketing and advertising professionals to observe existing trends in culture and predict newer, emerging trends.

Coolhunting itself is nothing new. In fact, if we dig deep enough, it may be the basis for all that we love and give such attention to. Anything that we devote such time to starts with curiosity and slight interest before growing to become full-blown passions. All of us have varying levels of interests in sports, but there is no doubt that the casual fans are the ones who seem to have the greatest sway in how popular a sport can become. You can think of coolhunting in the way that empires used to colonize countries and consume the foreign resources.

Last night while in the press lounge for the historic matchup between the New England Patriots and New York Giants, the word popped up immediately after grabbing the game’s program. A fellow media head with season credentials told me and SPJ that there were 75 additional media requests for the game. The press box at Giants Stadium accommodates 250 people, has ten broadcast booths and the lounge itself houses a few dozen more. As expected, some of the additional media were extra television heads from CBS, NBC and the NFL Network (it was simulcasted) as well as the omnipresent ESPN. Then there were national columnists from various newspapers across the country such as Bill Rhoden from the New York Times (who attends a few Giants games throughout the season), Jay Mariotti of the Chicago Sun-Times and Jason Whitlock of the Kansas City Star (and other depots of infamy). Somehow, someway, I’m walking out of the lounge at game’s end next to Taye Diggs, who for some reason, not well-received by a lot of women. It reminded me of something SPJ said earlier in the night; “this isn’t just a football phenomenon, but somehow the NFL has made this a pop culture phenomenon.”

Now, there are playoff games and major boxing matchups – both I have been fortunate enough to have covered in 2007 – that can make you stand up and take notice of the influx of bandwagon fans with some sort of wealth to pay top dollar for the hot tickets in sports. The bandwagon media didn’t make too many regulars very happy, either, but it speaks to the reality that if an outlet isn’t covering an event, it’s too late in the overall discussion. Yet, all sports have had these peaks of popularity that can only be explained as… well, it may not be explained fully or at all.

The NFL has become the ‘Heroes’ or ‘Entourage’ of sports. It has always enjoyed a great national popularity; however, it seems as if it has never been promoted more heavily and more star-crossed than in the current day. From the advertising push of Peyton Manning to the use of popular artists for theme songs preceding the games themselves, the NFL is everywhere, even in its offseason. Baseball speaks of a boon of its own attendance figures and pats itself on the back about the advent of the wild card, which allows for more meaningful games in August and September than at anytime in its history. The NBA was probably the first sports league to grow globally, but in the 1980s and 1990s, it gave Madison Avenue, Main Street and Wall Street a universally revered player named Michael Jordan. Even in 2007, Major League Soccer and mixed martial arts organizations such as UFC have gone sexy in their own ways thanks to David Beckham (the most recognized active athlete in the world) and Chuck Liddell. Every sport wants to bring on more fans, especially casual fans that are looking for something to sink their teeth (and if lucky, wallets) into. The casual fan in sports may be the same person that looks for the ‘most talked about’ new TV show or blasts radio hits on the way to work. They’re looking to grab onto what’s hot right now, to colonize an unfamiliar form of entertainment, if you will. They’re interested in something because of what they heard from someone else or because they want to be in the know, yet there had to be something to lure them in. Sports organizations give them superstars and are well schooled in the art of creating them for good reason. No matter how passionate a team’s fan base can be, it needs a ‘face’ that can attract casual fans and corporate dollars. Yet, once these new sets of eyes are fixed on a game, what’s next?

The biggest problem with coolhunting in this realm is that the newbies aren’t learning anything. We have an absurd wealth of information, not only because of digital technologies, but because there are too many people in the world to not learn something from. However, with sports organizations seeking celebrity status through the media and marketing, there is little effort to actually explain their games to the new found consumers. Sports media, itself, is the most responsible for this lack of education. Outside of a few shows explaining the basics of a sport or DVDs geared to fine tune a young athlete’s game, you don’t see the major media outlets making a similar effort to attract new readers, listeners or viewers. For the most part, the casual fan may be unfamiliar with the intricacies of the game that allow the superstars to perform. Much of the time, the casual onlooker may not be as interested in the soul of the game as much as he or she is interested in seeing the end result – the superstar or his/her team scores.

On the way to The Meadowlands last night, the parking lots were full and brimming with fans, scalpers and stale beer. Normally, the stadium isn’t filled until a few minutes into the first quarter, but this was two hours before kickoff! A stadium that seats just over 80,000, yet there must have been a few thousand more there to tailgate and purchase ticket stubs at game’s end. With many New Englanders in town mixed with the New York/New Jersey population, it was a mix of Yankee Stadium and the worst fraternity house in your alma mater. In the two years I have covered the Giants, I had never seen anything like it before. Yet, this is what happens when something is ‘it’. The coolhunters want a piece.

Say What?!?!: Were my eyes deceiving me or did the Lakers wear the short shorts in their game against the Celtics? Maybe it’s been too long since we’ve seen John Stockton and Dennis Rodman in those just-below-the-booty length shorts, but Kobe Bryant, Lamar Odom and Trevor Ariza look a little… Forgive me; I’m just lost for poignant words right now.

*If interested in the book, look to Amazon.com