In the video below, you tell me what Mark May is doing about 15 seconds in. Yeah I know you want to give him the benefit of the doubt, but I am pretty convinced it was the more hilarious possibility.

I am not the only one who interpreated that way.

So to recap, a typically cynical bitter commentator on ESPN who has ALWAYS been at odds with whomever his counter part is (Trev Alberts and now Lou Holtz) decided to mock his opponent in the weekly Final Vertict segment which usually sucks.

Whether it was the worst yawning gesture ever or mocked fellatio of Clausen via Holtz (ewww) is up to you. I hate to draw attention to something so sophomoric, but its pretty damn hard to ignore.

Given May's reaction a minute later upon losing his case, I think it only reinforces that May has had it with his aloof counterpart. Note to Mark May, Holtz's bizzare yet entertaining commentary is only there to make YOU look normal and like you know what you are talking about.

ESPN has a LOT of great college football talent but given the amount of games they televise and the fact that they use the top talent (Corso, Fowler, and Herbstreit) on the road every week, what you get is Reece Davis doing community service with Holtz and May.

Regardless of how this interpreted, its hard to see this talent lineup staying the same.

May continues to lose his shit......(Does he not recall the terminations of Stephen A Smith and Harold Reynolds?

Today the puck dropped on the 2009 hockey season. Yes, hockey is the youngest smallest brother of the major 4 sports but its still a major sport.

Just not enough to be ESPN......or actually on DirectTV.

Local fans can find their games on a local sports provider, but the national television rights are split between NBC (broadcasts very few games only after football season), Versus, and the new and mostly unknown NHL network.

I often find myself extremely interested in these network vs. cable/satellite provider pissing matches for distribution. I closely followed the Big Ten Networks push onto Comcast and Time Warner after a year of missing out distribution on those providers. Found myself awed by the politics involving Comcast and the NFL Networks ongoing pissing match.  Of late have been surprised yet enlightened by the emmergence of league owned channels like MLB Network, NHL Network, etc.  Click Read More

Athletes can make great spokespeople for products and brands. That's nothing new.

However they can be divisive considering sports fans often dislike various athletes for various reasons. Also sometimes the actual of act of doing a particular commercial can be offputting to some (remember the Charles Barkley, I'm not a role model commercial). Other examples are Carson Palmer's hot dog ad and Michael Phelps joining the lame party with Jared at Subway.

Anyways today I saw a new AT&T commercial that pretty much blew my mind. It featured, Tyler Hansbrough, probably one the most despised college basketball players of the past decade along with Joakim Noah. Hansbrough was extremely productive and a great team player, but just seemed to irk fans with his sometimes ugly/foul dependent offensive game as well as his very high strung/energetic demeanor. Basically, fans don't think he's the real deal and grew sick of the college basketball world showcasing him for four consecutive years.

Hansbrough went to the NBA and was drafted in the mid first round by the Indiana Pacers. Most people thought it was a stretch as Hasnbrough's game is not believed to translate well to the NBA. Despite the fact that basketball fans tend to dislike him, he has yet to play in the NBA, he plays for one of the smallest NBA markets, and his limited ability to be recognized , AT&T has put Hansbrough front and center in their new ad campaign.

I shit you not it involves puppies, a cute girl who is sad her puppy is missing, and Hansbrough saving the day via his phone. Its atrociously bad.

My guess is that only 1 out of 8 people who see this commercial will recognize Hansbrough. Out of those 7 people who don't recognize its him, 5 will think this commercial blows even with the puppy. Besides that, probably anyone who does realize that Hansbrough is in this commercial will most likely a) hate it b) laugh at how lame it is c) wonder why the ____ , Hansbrough is in this commercial. Yeah he went to school for four years, stayed out of trouble, and is known for monster effort and intensity, but really is this going to push AT&T or just irk sports fans with its lameness?

First off, I am back.

I moved, I went to Seattle, I went to New York, I launched Bloguin.com and so on...It was a very busy month but I'll be back more often. Now back to blogging....

From the moment the Super Bowl ends to first college football games, I yearn for football. Yes, I seriously yearn for it. I could list a million reasons why I love it so much and why its probably either number 1 or 2 of favorite thing in my life. Sheesh, that short list of my favorite things is a all over the place and probably NSFW.

From February- June I survive off of March Madness, the draft, NBA, NHL, and thinking the A's might contend. All of those things end in June and then its just torture. Nascar, golf, and tennis are all sportscenter things for me unless Nadal is playing Federer or there is some type of playoff in a Major. MMA and boxing is getting traction, but you're not going to find me with gel in my hair and an Affliction shirt on at a bar anytime soon.

Then all of the sudden, it's back........College football kicked off today, with a myriad of big games on the horizon for Saturday and the NFL only a week away. To put it in perspective today was essentially the equivalent of being released from prison and then immediately being taken to the Playboy Mansion for a 4 month calendar shoot in which you are photographer, casting director, and oil boy.

Even though I unveiled a new addition to my life (to the left below), the sheer crappiness of the 6 hours of football I watched was pretty disheartening.

I'll get to the football in just a second, but unless you live under a rock you know that the major news from college football was Oregon's Running Back, LeGarrette Blount, sucker punching a Boise State player (Byron Houtt with his helmet off) after the game. He followed this with taunting Boise State players concerned for their teammate, trying to fight people in the Boise State crowd, and then seemingly getting overly aggressive with 3-5 different personnel who were restraining him. His last name is Blount, but on this night he seemed high on PCP.

Head Coach Chris Peterson telling his player not to taunt Blount and is treated to a up close and personal look at Blount's right hook

I'll post a video at the end of this article/after the jump (although it will probably be taken down by espn at some point). Click read more...

I go to the movies maybe 3x a year since college. I wish I could go more, I just never do. One day I hope that changes, but here is a movie that is on my radar that I want to see badly.

Similar to my obsession with Point Break Live, this just seems like something that need to be crossed off the Bucket List.  Behold, the worst movie ever made.

I've been bad the last week and posting this upcoming week will not be good either. In a 17 day period I have these things going on. Right now is day 5....

- A birthday

- A wedding outside of Seattle

- A business trip to New York

- A move

- Completion of a consulting job

- Continued awesomeness

I will return.....

ESPN today announced that they will be launching destination sites like espnchicago.com in LA, New York, and Dallas. The article made the front page of the New York Times and has peaked the interest of many in the blogosphere.

The NYT article doesn't pull punches clearly making the connection that this is another blow to print media and their online properties in these cities.

"In less than three months, ESPN Chicago has become the city’s top sports site, attracting about 590,000 unique visitors in June, according to data from comScore, an Internet measurement company. Second place went to The Tribune’s online sports section with 455,000 unique visitors.

ESPN Chicago does not seem to have cut into The Tribune’s online sports audience as much as it has slowed its growth, according to a review of the traffic data."

My first reaction is that I doubt ESPN Chicago actually had more page views then the Tribune despite the UV number but that still doesn't do much for Tribune or other newspapers who see the ominous shadow of ESPN behind them. ESPN promoted their Chicago microsite so vigorously on air the past 4 months that the advertising alone probably accounted for a good portion of the unique visitors with many of the visitors not sticking to the site.

Regardless of that fact, ESPN has made a bold move to grow their audience by launching region specific hubs. With local radio stations providing advertising/promotion air cover as well as a talent pipeline for the new sites, I think its safe to say ESPN will have further success in this new region niche . (More after the jump, including my ESPN theory)

Commercial of the Week is back from a LONG hiatus. Saw this yesterday and it really cracked me up.

Minute Maid isn't really a sexy product nor one that necessarily stick out through the clutter to 18-35 men. This commercial accomplishes that and caps it with some nice imagery that makes me miss the awesomeness of juice. Kind of want some Minute Maid, but also thinking how awesome it would be to down some Squeeze It's for nostalgia reasons.

Also floating around are two god awful Just For Men Commercials, that are sooooo bad they are actually kind of good. I can only find this one if you click to read more.

If you head over to Blogswithballs.com you'll find a couple new things. First the site has been redesigned to promote the upcoming 2.0 conference to be held in Las Vegas, October 15-16. as part of the broader Blogwold Conference. I blogged about this before, but this is a huge step up from years past as the sports blog track of this conference has been a little lackluster.

Another thing you'll notice the hilight video of Blogs Witb Balls 1.0 with some NSFW but hilarious thoughts on 2.0 from EDSBS' Spencer Hall who could have been voted, Best Sense of Humor, at BWB 1.0.

As you can tell from my previous writeup, I am a huge fan of BWB and think the timing for these events are spot on as this quaint but up and coming industry seems to have found its stride in terms of economic viability and mainstream traction of late.

I am going to write a very broad piece tonight about some of the VERY encouraging things I am seeing in Sports 2.0 (which probably needs a real definition btw). I'll still write some of the things on my mind, but that thunder got stolen today with the news that SB Nation, a company somewhat similar to Bloguin, raised a whopping $8 million today in funding.

You can read about this at All Things Digital who seems to have a source very close to the situation, as well as Paid Content who actually has the filing of the funding.

So where to begin... (you are about to see my first read more attempt ever on a blog)