Well, it’s the day after Thanksgiving and everyone except me and a few other Turkey haters are eating leftover dry stringy bird remnants. I had porterhouse steak yesterday, (***insert Caddyshack reference***: “Oh! Porterhouse!”) as usual, and watched everyone else fall asleep due to tryptophan or whatever it’s called.
So it’s time to give out the Dry, Stringy Turkey of the Year Award. We have a tie this year, ESPN and the NFL. ESPN makes a habit of giving us endless fodder: between “Priority Score Alerts,” the dismembering of MN, a neanderthal attitude on steroids, and class after class of chump/lunkhead/dingbat athlete broadcasters, (see “Emmitt Smith, Wordsmith,” where Eli Manning has been given “the rice of passage!”), but this year”s sinister acquisition of sports rights coupled with the possible scheme of moving them to ESPN pay stations is as odius a scheme as has ever been hatched in the sports world and is rightfully triggering widespread outrage. Opposition runs from politicians to the fan on the street who, through the good fortune of Internet technology, now can learn how to see right through their nonsense and call them out on it, loudly and publicly.
The NFL is getting the imperious eye from Congress and local politicians for a similar scheme. Moreover, not only are PSLs a legal fiction created solely to fleece the average fan so the owners can live frivolously, if not price them out altogether, but Citi is also buying naming rights for the Jets” stadium, while getting a massive buyout from the public. They get you even if you”re not a football fan and football fans pay twice, and up to several multipliers of their original bill. See Phil Mushnick of the New York Post for more.
Now so that you don”t think I”m a knee-jerk ESPN hater, the runner-up for the Sportswriting Jazzy Award for this year is also an ESPN writer, ohmbudsman LeAnn Schreiber. You”ll just have to tune in to find out who the winner is, but he had to do a whale of a job to beat out LeAnn.
Please click here for Tony Korologos of Hooked on Golf Blog, who breaks down golf’s 2008 Chumps, Lunkheads, and Dingbats like a fraction. Michelle Wie, the LPGA Tour, the FedEx Cup, and…a name you”ll recognize at Numero Uno…round out a list of the Tours” tales from the weird this year. Tony, you rock.
2007 Turkey Award – Tom Farrey, ESPN
2006 Turkey Award – Atunyote G.C. at Blarney Stone…err…Turning Stone Casino
[…] at these images after Thanksgiving dinner… For more good year end lunkhead awards, check out Jay’s Jazzy Awards. Written by Tony Korologos a.k.a. mediaguru @ 12:47 am. Filed under Golf Media, LPGA […]