If it weren't for his proclivity to sleep with women, guys like hockey player Sean Avery might go by the label "gay." Yep, the man loves clothes, and we love stereotypes. Though he's "the most hated man in hockey," he was likable enough for Anna Wintour, who agreed to hire him as a Vogue intern after he wrote in with the request. Though he's earning $2 million with the New York Rangers, this summer he'll be schlepping couture from messengers to the Vogue offices, perhaps even the Men's Vogue offices, though that won't do much for his tendency to style girlfriends.
David Beckham's bulge increased sales of Emporio Armani underwear by 30 percent. But his foot also appeared in just five Los Angeles Galaxy soccer games, inviting reporters to speculate he's past his prime. Is he just a washed up endorsement deal? Let Anderson Cooper do what he does best: get to the bottom of things. (We're here all night!)
The CNN anchor's hyped 60 Minutes segment aired last night, and the only thing tighter than Cooper's T-shirt was Beckham's shot at the net … which Anderson volunteered to stand in front of and risk getting nailed. (Ba-duh-bum!) CONTINUED »
The New York Rangers and owner Madison Square Garden are facing a lavender rebellion. Gay fans, such as Kevin Jennings, are growing more vocal in their fight against homophobic epithets hurled during home games. "[Some] fans recalled that the crowd booed when the name of the New York City Gay Hockey Association, a recreational league, flashed briefly across the jumbo screen."
For all the stupid Super Bowl ad hype, the one above actually is pretty inspired. And until Eli Manning played superman in the last drive, wasn't even going to air.
Have you heard? Sunday is the Super Bowl. It’s not a regular bowl game. It’s a super one.
To build hype for the Most Important Sport Event Ever, for the past two weeks we’ve been bombarded with touching locker room pieces and less touching stalkings of Tom Brady and Giselle.
But the real game going on is the advertising game. The Super Bowl really is the Most Important Sport Event Ever, at least in terms of ratings. Consequently, Super Bowl ads this year are going for an average of $2.7 million.
But that’s nothing when you consider all the hype having a Super Bowl ad brings a company. Above is an ad we voluntarily put up for Pepsi. Think about that for a second. We’re putting up an advertisement for a soft drink we don’t even like because we think you, the reader, are interested in it. And somehow you are. We are, too.
For $2.7 million, Pepsi didn’t just buy a captive audience. They bought an adoring one. Anyone want a soda?
Here’s the thing about journalism today. There’s no money anywhere. Even though coverage of Iraq is “important,” there are no page views in it.
On the other hand, there are millions page views for sports. That’s why ESPN has been able to invest ridunklous money in sports journalism. And that’s also why Rupert Murdoch is adding a sports section to the Wall Street Journal. There's money in it: People really seem to care about men chasing after balls.
Also, “Money For Sports” was a rallying cry in the Saved By Bell episode where a Bayside alum donates $10,000 to the school. The guys, led by Zack and Slater, think the money should be used for men’s sports, while the girls, led by Tory, the chick with the leather jacket who replaced Kelly and Jessie Spano for a few episodes, think it should be used for women’s sports. Friendly competition ensues, along with canned laughter.
We at Jossip don't really care about sports, but we do think ESPN is doing awesome things for sports journalists. We talked to Rob King, the editor-in-chief of ESPN.com to talk about investing in writing, fan expectation and how his son wants an elevator for his birthday.
ESPN seems to be aggressive in pursuing top-notch journalists over the past few months. So what's up with that?
It's something that has been going on for a long time. If you look at some of the people who make decisions here, they come from newspapers, magazines like Rolling Stone, Sports Illustrated. Vince Doria, who oversees our news coverage, is a longtime newspaper man. … It seems to be happening a condensed burst. Rick Reilly is a big enough name that it has generated more attention to what we're doing. But the truth of the matter is that we've long been involved with trying to find the best sports journalists we can. I'm happy recipient of that kind of attention myself. I was in newspapers for more than 20 years. I was working at the Philadelphia Inquirer when ESPN came and made me an offer I couldn't refuse. CONTINUED »
For the past few months, ESPN has been gobbling up the best sports journalists in this country with the kind of money that would make most writers blush.
But their strategy is not to save journalism, but to save themselves. With the Internet and all that Web 2.0 stuff going on, keeping ratings growing is next to impossible for cable news. So ESPN is gambling on quality reporting to keep themselves relevant: CONTINUED »
After an ugly loss last night to the Dallas Mavericks, the Knicks have fallen to an unimpressive 6-14 record, a season low that puts them in a full 8 games below .500. And while many hold coach Isiah Thomas responsible, Thomas has a competing theory: It's all your fault.
Unlike basketball or Greco-Roman wrestling, however, squash does enjoy a prestige that some think makes it attractive to college admissions boards. With roots in the English public schools of the 19th century, squash conveys an aristocratic quirkiness, a bit like a taste for Sanskrit poetry. More than its preppy cousins lacrosse and rowing, it is also considered a cerebral sport — chess in short pants.
–Excerpted from Alex William's piece ["And For Sports, Kid, Put Down 'Squash'"] from the Style section of this past Sunday's New York Times
The show must go on…and so must Knicks starting point guard, Stephon Marbury. Even when all the Knicks trainers, fellow players and virtually everybody except Marbury knew that his father had suffered what would turn out to be a fatal heart attack and had to be rushed to the hospital, mid-game.
Good call leaving Marbury in, Isiah! After all, we can't imagine what another loss would do to team morale. Oh, wait. That happened, anyway. [Stereohyped]
Playing With Heat: Studly left-hander Andy Pettitte has decided to put off retirement to pitch for the New York Yankees in 2008. The 35 year-old Baton Rouge, Louisiana native's triumphant return to pinstripes is exceedingly good news for both the Yankees management, and for a certain Jossip editor, who's had an unrequited crush on Pettite (despite his rather unfortunate-looking Wikipedia picture) since circa 1995.
[For the record, the other Jossip editor registers her dissent, describing the comely/talented Pettitte as, "Not unhot, but not my type."]
The Knicks’ first nationally televised game in years turned into a nationally televised humiliation — a 104-59 rout that served as a striking indictment of the Knicks’ resolve. They appeared to be playing near one another, as opposed to with one another. The scale of their defeat calls into question whether players are either turning on Thomas or perhaps on one another. They all dismissed the idea, but Thomas blasted his players for playing “extremely selfish.”
With seconds to go, the Knicks had 56 points, 2 points shy of the franchise-record low score. They avoided that ignominy when Nate Robinson swished a 37-footer at the final buzzer. The 45-point defeat was the Knicks’ worst in nearly 27 years, since a 131-86 loss at Indiana on Feb. 20, 1980, and tied that game for the third worst loss in franchise history. The Celtics showed some mercy in the final minute, at one point dribbling out the 24-second clock.
–Excerpted from Howard Beck's piece ("Knicks Are A Flop In Prime Time") in The New York Times [Image via NYT]
• Breaking! Brad Pitt to stop doing nude scenes and start making crappy family-friendly films a la Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium. And while he's at it, he's also going to offend Jack Nicholson, Clint Eastwood and Meryl Streep by insisting that acting is a "younger person's game."
• "A meeting held at Madison Square Garden Wednesday between New York Knicks ownership and head coach Isiah Thomas was interrupted more than half a dozen times by 'Fire Isiah' chants which came at various points throughout the two-hour-long discussion, Knicks officials reported." Okay, fine, so that didn't really happen. But we're thinking it's just a matter of time.
• The most objectively attractive male contestant on Project Runway receives the honor of dressing Tiki Barber. In semi-related news, this is officially the happiest moment of his life since the day he got cheekbone implants.
Is the increasing popularity of competitive eating contests "feeding" into the country's propensity for weight gain and childhood obesity? Most say yes! Others, however, equate getting ready for a binge-eating contest to training for the marathon or even fine art!
"It's the same sort of person who, let's say, would train really hard and compete really hard in a marathon," said Wansink, author of "Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think."
[IFCE Chairman George] Shea said there's no reason to be embarrassed about such events.
"Seeing these guys go at a 20 pound turkey is like poetry," he said. "It's like a dance."
We're thinking the poetry/dance simile is somehow more apt. That is, assuming that by "poetry" Shea meant "haiku to gluttony" and by "dance" he meant "8000 calorie binge."
…Why Keith Olbermann refuses to comprehend the term "four-day weekend." The hardworking MSNBC pundit's bespectacled mug interrupted our lazy respite by popping up last night on The Simpsons (in all his jaundiced yellow/cartoon glory) and then again during the halftime of the NBC Sunday Night Football game—which, incidentally, featured the undefeated Patriots coming this-close to losing to the Philadelphia Eagles, much to the chagrin of loyal Pats fans/scary bookie types.
Although we can’t always shake the nasty habit of writing in the royal we, occasionally one of our editors decides to shake off the cloak of anonymity to write a short, pithy statement long, rambling diatribe about a topic of their choice. Today, Debbie Newman is that editor.
This just in: The Yankees' adulterous third baseman (and this year's league MVP) Alex Rodriguez is arrogant, greedy and not particularly well liked by the New York fans or working media.
Worse still, he recently opted out of his contract with the Yanks AND disingenuously said things like "I love New York" while simultaneously fielding offers from all over the country. Plus, this one time? Prior to joining the Yanks? He said something way harsh about Derek Jeter "never [having] had to lead" before. Which, according to columnist-turned-baseball aficionado Jon Friedman, just may have helped spur on their rivalry.
This morning, despite the fact that our fifth sense (a.k.a. ESPN) told us it was already raining, we decided to check Weather.com for the daily forecast. Instead, we found a somewhat entertaining, embarrassingly outdated and completely non weather-related poll:
So who will win the 2007 World Series?
We're thinking the answer might be (e) The Sox sweep, A-Rod waits until the start of Game 4 to announce he's totally screwing the Yankees and the Rockies lose the entire thing faster than you can say "The National League sucks."
But hey, that's just a guess.
F.Y.I., non-football fans: this weekend is sort of a big deal.
The undefeated Patriots are playing the undefeated Colts. For sports fans, this kind of match-up is usually seen as exciting. Sadly for everyone else, the game won't have any funny ads.
The profits from the game aren’t limited to CBS. Bookies are doing pretty well too. "Without question, this will be the most wagered-on game of the 2007 regular season," Michael Seaton, general manager of Spread Media Inc. told the L.A. Times.
Right now, New England is up 6 1/2 on the point spread, but we're on Team Bridget. Go Colts!
Say what you will about Americans, but we mostly keep our clothes on at professional sporting events. The same cannot be said for the British.
Yesterday, the Giants beat the Dolphins at Wembley Stadium in London. During half time, a streaker with a strategically placed sock showed the teams how it’s done in England.
NSFW clip after the jump.
Editorial Director
