While I was in the student section during the Marquette win, I was getting periodical messages from Liz (a.k.a. “SportsGal” in the comment section) about this thing called “Interactive Tuesday” that apparently was going on during the game. What this exactly meant, I really don’t know. I watch a lot of college hoops, but it’s usually ESPN’s “Big Monday” and the weekend games. I thought I needed to clear some space in my Tuesday schedule to catch this phenomenon. But according to multiple outlets, it’s best I stay away.
It started with a BBM (for all you crackberry people) from Liz, who was venting her frustration that Rick Pitino had beaten Jay Wright for “better dressed coach” in a fan poll during the game. Now my initial reaction was confusion (what the hell is Liz talking about?), which was then followed by more confusion (how in the name of all that is good and pure can anyone vote for a coach besides Jay?), followed by anger at myself, because I was missing the game.
So in reality, I forget all about this whole mess. When I head over to Cracked Sidewalks today, I see this stunningly beautiful piece of writing from Rob Lowe (a contributor there). What I had discovered was that ESPN spent the majority of the game having stupid polls like “cheesesteak or brat” scrolling across the top, along with the announcers plugging it, in a shameless way to somehow get fans more involved. Because obviously a grudge match, shootout between two Top 15 teams is boring. Anyways, fantastic job by Rob here. The letter to ESPN’s Ombudsman Le Anne Schreiber reads quite eloquently, but manages to squeeze in gems like “failure” to really drive the point home.
But it doesn’t stop there. Even our own greyCat from Villanova By The Numbers is disgusted. (Speaking of greyCat, I love his work over there, but it hurts my head. I’m a finance major. I’m supposed to be good at math. And I feel like when I meet him, he’s going to tell me he was an Arts major. And then I’m really going to feel stupid and I’m not going to like him anymore. Sorry, I digress.)
Anyways, he shares the same opinion, which if you haven’t caught on yet, is not good. He also writes his own letter to ESPN, with perhaps the best line being “please do not inflict ‘Interactive Tuesday’ on another audience.” The bloggers are portraying this as a hate crime. I love it.
And then the final straw. The guys at the phenomenal blog Awful Announcing let everyone know that this isn’t the first time ESPN has sodomized a collegiate event with this non-sense.
Apparently, it was around for the football season. I’m trying to think about why we didn’t know about this. How were ‘Nova and Marquette fans alike completely blindsided? Oh right, we don’t have football (I kid, sort of). Anyways, despite terrible ratings, the bigwigs up in Bristol decided to torture hoops fans everywhere.
Now I’m really thankful that I was able to attend the game, and please accept my deepest apologies if you had to watch on TV. You did get one moment out of it though, courtesy of “Larry.”
Liz, if you want air time, you have to "embellish" your name.
Oh, by the way, that screenshot is of Dominic James’ second missed alley-oop of the night. That’s got to put a smile on your face.
Hezekiah
February 13, 2009
You are my new favorite Villanova Blog. Your insight is like a breath of fresh air. I too was subjected to the Interactive nonsense during the game. It was almost as if ESPN did not take it the game seriously…surprise!