So did you spend much of yesterday in front of a TV set with C-SPAN on the screen? I checked out some of the hearings; I could not bring myself to watch all of it. The most outrageous part of it came when Rep. Burton went off on a riff about the media turning this whole matter into a circus atmosphere. Excuse me; but Rep. Burton was using that whole “circus atmosphere” to get his mug on the TV screen and in front of one of the largest TV audiences for a Congressional Committee hearing ever.
There are two things about this whole matter that simply do not make sense to me and I am now convinced that Roger Clemens and his lawyer are neither willing nor able to explain these things such that they might make sense. Consider:
1. Why would Andy Pettite tell the truth about his own HGH use – something that will not enhance his image or his career – and lie about what he knows about Roger Clemens’ alleged usage? Seems to me as if Pettite has a motive to lie about his own usage more than he does to lie about Clemens’ alleged usage.
2. Why would Brian McNamee give HGH to some of his clients (Pettite, Knoblauch) but withhold it from his top-shelf client?
After what I saw yesterday, I seriously doubt that Roger Clemens will be reporting to Spring Training anytime next week. And that is a good thing because it will free up for him all those weekends of quality time with his kids that were so important to him when he negotiated his last several contracts.
In contrast to the obfuscation and the careful wording of answers at the Congressional hearing yesterday, consider the remarks of Hernan Dario Gomez. He is a soccer coach with a sound résumé; he coached the national teams of both Colombia and Ecuador into the World Cup tournament in the past ten years. Until recently, he was the coach of the Guatemalan national team. Gomez resigned after his team lost to Argentina taking his record with the Guatemalan team to 5-11-4. He did not go quietly into the night; he is probably the leader in the clubhouse for the 2008 “Howard Cosell Tell It Like It Is Award”:
“It [the team’s losing record] would be a failure if I had been coaching Argentina. It would be a failure if I had been coaching Italy. But, with all respect, it is not a failure because Guatemala has never won anything.”
People refer to the dog days of August. In the sporting world, they should refer to the dog days of February because that is when people feign interest in both the Westminster Dog Show and the Iditarod.
Darren Rovell reports in Sportsbiz on the top twenty selling NFL jerseys in the period 1 April 2007 through 8 February 2008. The top four – in order – are Tony Romo, Tom Brady, Brett Favre and Peyton Manning. There is no real surprise that these are the top sellers; I probably would not have guessed that Romo was in the #1 slot but I cannot call this information a “revelation”. However, here are two interesting things from the list:
Reggie Bush was at #13. Last year, his jersey was the #2 seller; that is a big drop. Then again, Bush did not do all that well on the field this year.
Brady Quinn was at #17. Wow! Imagine how many jerseys he could sell if he actually – you know – played in NFL games. Was he on the field for more than 30 minutes all season long? I’d be surprised.
While on the general subject of sporting economics, there was a story in Sports Business Daily recently about cable TV. ESPN is the third most popular cable TV channel with an average of just under 2 million viewers in prime time. ESPN2 had another 657,000 pairs of eyeballs on the screen on a typical evening in prime time. That is good news for the ESPN folks – - except that the viewership was down almost 11% from a year ago. Nevertheless, the ESPN family dominates the “sports channels” in terms of eyeballs on the screen.
For example, Versus – where NHL games go to die – averaged only 225,000 viewers in prime time; it was the 47th most popular cable channel. The NFL Network – which has been unsuccessful in jamming its product down the throats of cable TV operators – averages 196,000 viewers in prime time and finishes 50th in terms of popularity. In addition, The Golf Channel checks in at 59th on the list with only 137,000 folks tuned in on average during prime time.
That data show why a sport should try to get its product on ESPN. It is not just the hype that ESPN will provide to the product but it is the number of folks out there watching ESPN so that they can be revved up by the hype.
In case you were wondering, USA Network finished first on the list and TNT finished second ahead of ESPN…
Jerry Greene had this tidbit in a column in the Orlando Sentinel. I do not know if this is a sign of the apocalypse but I am certain that this does not portend an imminent leap forward for Western Civilization:
“Mastiff, a small video game company, has hooked up with the pro competitive eaters for ‘Major League Eating: The Game.’ ‘Major League Eaters aren’t just elite athletes,’ said Mastiff Chief Executive Officer Bill Swartz. ‘They are people who built America — or at least the competitive eating part of America.’ “
Finally, here is a comment from Jay Leno that has a small intersection between sports and Valentine’s Day:
”Eleven percent of all businessmen prefer golf to having sex. The other 89 percent said they prefer to have sex with a woman whose husband was out playing golf.”
But don’t get me wrong, I love sports…