Why ESPN3 Coming to the Xbox 360 Isn’t a Death Knell For Cable

I watch more sports than nearly everyone I know.

Riled Up About Selling Books

I don’t know whether to be more depressed that Rick Reilly has at least ten copies of his own book on his library bookshelves or impressed that he has eBay Business for Dummies, presumably to help him get rid of those books.

Also, Rick, putting your “curvaceous blonde” wife in an ESPN video as the woman at the party you cannot get just serves to enhance your late-life rep as a charm-impaired guy getting by on name recognition.

(Oh, and the new book turned to face the camera? Lame.)

Colin Cowherd and Basketball, In Sum

And then there’s this unembeddable video of Colin Cowherd getting his opinions literally rejected by Bruce Bowen.

Basically, Colin Cowherd’s opinions on basketball are suspect.

(Videos via Barking Carnival and The Big Lead.)

ESPN’s Presentation, Revamped

Yes, that's Tebow on the right.

Pastapadre notes today that a video EA Sports released to reveal Tim Tebow as the cover athlete for NCAA Football 11 also revealed that the game looks like it has ESPN presentation much like the ESPN and CBS presentation in NCAA Basketball 10. That is quite cool: Though I didn’t really love the gameplay in the last version of the college hoops game, the presentation was immersive and compelling, and did a great job of translating what you see on TV to a game you can play, and I assume the better-manned gridiron franchise will take that even further. (Update: Bingo.)

However, this is interesting to me not just as a sports gamer, but as an ESPN watcher, because I forgot that The Worldwide Leader’s changing its on-screen presentation for college football, and maybe more than that.

Richard Justice Regrets Eating Chris Berman’s Donuts

Were they Nutrisystem donuts?

Houston Chronicle columnist Richard Justice probably wasn’t going to show up on PTI anytime soon. But I want to know whether revealing that Chris Berman brought a dozen donuts with him to Spring Training Baseball Tonight shows (note the schedule) runs afoul of Bristol’s sacred cow or just counts as him praising Berman for toting in a dozen Krispy Kremes, so you may consider this me asking for Justice to be suspended from PTI.

You may also consider that I may have just wanted to call Berman a sacred cow.

Update: Justice appeared on PTI on March 5th.

I Guess Bill Simmons Can Talk About Bud Selig

But the Red Sox have been better under Selig than they ever were. No one denies this.

So Bill Simmons can tweet all that, but Peter Pascarelli gets suspended and loses his podcast for griping about Bud Selig, and Scott Van Pelt gets suspended for talking about Selig’s “pimp cup.”

Simmons also mentioned Selig in an ESPN chat after the initial posting of this article.

We need a statue for joke recycling.

It’s almost like one of these things is not like the others.

ESPN and Social Media: What ESPN Should Do—And What It Will

The steps.

I’ve been hammering the Worldwide Leader’s new social media policy this week for all and sundry reasons, highlighting some shrugging reactions from ESPN personnel on Twitter, noting a very funny parody, and charging the network with some dodgy disclosure.

Today, I can tell you and ESPN what the network should do in the future with Twitter and other forms of social media. And I’ll show you some of what they already have.

ESPN’s Social Media Policy: The Disingenuous Tweet and Hiding the Ball (Update)

Update: Response from ESPN’s Nate Smeltz at bottom.

Oh, the tangled webs we weave.