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All-Encompassing Sports TV Thread of Hate


LooseCannon

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Olbermann doesn't have to talk about politics to work and they don't have to let him either if they don't want to. If they achieve a solid balance that would be fine. I tend to agree with the majority of what he probably espouses belief-wise, but still think he's a loud-mouthed jackass. All is well.

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If you were wondering why Hugh Douglas wasn't on Numbers Never Lie on Monday, this is why...

 

Last Thursday, at the National Association of Black Journalists Convention and Career Fair, Hugh Douglas, the former Eagle and current NFL analyst for ESPN, was very drunk. A day later he would be both drunk and combative, and, as The Big Lead first reported, he and an ESPN colleague would nearly come to blows. But what went down on Friday had its roots in what happened on Thursday.

Douglas was at the Gaylord Palms Resort hotel, along with his Numbers Never Lie co-hosts, Michael Smith and Jemele Hill. Smith and Hill were speaking to "hundreds of conventioneers." Smith and Hill, both former print journalists, have been buddies for a while. They started doing a podcast a few months ago, in addition to their ESPN TV show. The podcast is called His & Hers with Michael Smith and Jemele Hill, and they were explaining to potential ESPN job recruits how it came to be. Just as they were wrapping up, Douglas approached them.

Two people told us that Douglas was drunk. Not tipsy. Wasted. We've also been told that Douglas has felt uncomfortable ever since Hill's addition to the show a few months back. Smith and Hill, after all, are old friends, and the show was now two journalists plus an ex-jock, with some loose talk that new hire Nate Silver might have some role on the show, too. A source speculates that Douglas, outnumbered by non-jocks, felt left out.

The rest is here at Deadspin.

 

Follow up on this - Hugh Douglas has been fired

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They released the next batch of the 30 for 30's about a month ago:

 

October 8. Free Spirits. This one is going to look at the Spirits of St Louis leading into the NBA/ABA merger, and how the team is still existing and making money for their owners today. It's directed by Daniel H. Forer.

 

Long story short, the ex-Spirits owners got (I think) one-sixth of the annual broadcasting revenue from the Spurs, Nets, Nuggets and Pacers (the surviving ABA clubs) in perpetuity. As you might imagine, they made out like BANDITS on that little deal.

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They released the next batch of the 30 for 30's about a month ago:

 

October 8. Free Spirits. This one is going to look at the Spirits of St Louis leading into the NBA/ABA merger, and how the team is still existing and making money for their owners today. It's directed by Daniel H. Forer.

 

Long story short, the ex-Spirits owners got (I think) one-sixth of the annual broadcasting revenue from the Spurs, Nets, Nuggets and Pacers (the surviving ABA clubs) in perpetuity. As you might imagine, they made out like BANDITS on that little deal.

 

I hope there is an extended portion of that documentary dedicated to Marvin "Bad News" Barnes one of the great lost characters in basketball history.  If you get a chance to read "Loose Balls" by Terry Pluto, which is the oral history of the ABA, you'll realize that the ABA was probably the most entertaining sports league of all time on and off the court.

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I think you're right, Pete. I've heard the one-sixth number myself.  Lawd, the money they're raking in.  THE NBA!  IT'S FAN-TASTIC!

 

Not surprised by Douglas getting sacked.  He was decent, but ex-NFL guys are a dime a dozen and the Mouse House has 19746126 of those guys running around already.  That said, they should have known better than to keep him on Numbers Never Lie after Jemele Hill came on board.  Her friendship with Michael Smith was going to push Hugh to the side under the best of circumstances.  Factor in a possible drinking problem and it things were destined to go bad.

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They released the next batch of the 30 for 30's about a month ago: October 8. Free Spirits. This one is going to look at the Spirits of St Louis leading into the NBA/ABA merger, and how the team is still existing and making money for their owners today. It's directed by Daniel H. Forer.

 Long story short, the ex-Spirits owners got (I think) one-sixth of the annual broadcasting revenue from the Spurs, Nets, Nuggets and Pacers (the surviving ABA clubs) in perpetuity. As you might imagine, they made out like BANDITS on that little deal.
I hope there is an extended portion of that documentary dedicated to Marvin "Bad News" Barnes one of the great lost characters in basketball history.  If you get a chance to read "Loose Balls" by Terry Pluto, which is the oral history of the ABA, you'll realize that the ABA was probably the most entertaining sports league of all time on and off the court.
"I ain't getting in no time machine."
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They released the next batch of the 30 for 30's about a month ago:

 

October 8. Free Spirits. This one is going to look at the Spirits of St Louis leading into the NBA/ABA merger, and how the team is still existing and making money for their owners today. It's directed by Daniel H. Forer.

 

Long story short, the ex-Spirits owners got (I think) one-sixth of the annual broadcasting revenue from the Spurs, Nets, Nuggets and Pacers (the surviving ABA clubs) in perpetuity. As you might imagine, they made out like BANDITS on that little deal.

 

To quote Wiki:

 

the owners of the Spirits, the brothers Ozzie and Dan Silna, struck a prescient deal to acquire future television money from the teams that joined the NBA, a one-seventh share from each franchise, in perpetuity. With network TV deals becoming more and more lucrative, the deal has made the Silnas wealthy, earning them $186 million as of 2008, according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, and $255 million as of 2012 according to the New York Times.[1] (The NBA nearly succeeded in buying out the Silnas in 1982 by offering $5 million over eight years, but negotiations stalled when the siblings demanded $8 million over five.) On June 27, 2007, it was extended for another eight years, ensuring another $100 million-plus windfall for the Silnas. Presently, the Silnas receive $14.57 million a year, despite being owners of a team that hasn't played one minute of basketball in 35 years

 

That has to be the best sports contract of all-time.

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I hope there is an extended portion of that documentary dedicated to Marvin "Bad News" Barnes one of the great lost characters in basketball history.  If you get a chance to read "Loose Balls" by Terry Pluto, which is the oral history of the ABA, you'll realize that the ABA was probably the most entertaining sports league of all time on and off the court.

 

Awesome, awesome book.  Terry Pluto killed it with Loose Balls - one of my favorite books.  It really helps you understand the importance of Dr. J, the Indiana Pacers, and the Kentucky Colonels.  His follow up, Tall Tales, about the early years of the NBA is pretty damn good too. 

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God bless the Onion:

 

 

 

New ESPN Program To Feature Attractive Blonde Reading Tweets For 30 Minutes
SPORTS NEWS IN BRIEF • Sports • ISSUE 49•33 • Aug 14, 2013
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LOS ANGELES—ESPN programming executives announced Wednesday the debut of a new show called The Pulse that will air afternoons on ESPN and evenings on ESPN2 and which will consist of an attractive blonde host reading tweets and Facebook comments to the camera for a half hour. “This new show will tap into the real conversations taking place across social channels and then literally repeat those conversations back to people,” said Jamie Horowitz, vice president of original programming. “We are confident that a beautiful, flaxen-haired young woman flirtatiously reading short, easy-to-digest messages aloud is exactly the kind of innovative programming that the discerning modern sports fan demands.” After several rounds of test marketing, the collected data suggested that The Pulse has the potential to become the most popular program on the entire ESPN family of networks despite frequently veering completely off the topic of sports.

 

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