ACC extension shows ESPN's shrewd control over competition and expansion

Last week I pummeled ESPN on how they've utterly failed to capitalize on the college recruiting subscription business. While we can be known as an "Anti ESPN" blog we generally give them props when they're deserved. With that in mind, I find myself somewhat floored by the Bobby Fischer-esque chess game they're playing as the ACC will now submissively sign an extension with ESPN that will run through 2026.

At first glance, it looks like the ACC is coming out a winner and in many ways they are. They added Pitt and Syracuse, which triggered the ability to renegotiate with ESPN. The rumored extension will close the gap on television revenue per school comparative to schools from other BCS conferences. From SBJ:

"Under the new terms that are being negotiated, each of the ACC’s 14 schools can expect at least $14 million to $15 million a year, sources said, depending on how negotiations between the conference and ESPN conclude.

That would help the ACC close a fairly significant annual revenue gap with other major conferences. The Pac-12 and Big Ten each are distributing close to $21 million per school a year. The SEC’s deal provides $17 million per school, and the Big 12’s schools."

Currently ACC schools get about $13 million a year but as CBS pointed out, there is also an increase in travel budget as the league expands. More importantly, barring further expansion or something unforeseen, the ACC is about tapped out in terms of television monetization and are locked into their current deal until 2026, fourteen years from now. To put that in perspective, 14 years ago Roger Maris still held the single season Home Run record and Bill Clinton was giving us a very finite explanation of what constituted as sex.

What makes it worse for the ACC is that generally speaking the short term and long term outlook for sports media rights and in particular college sports rights are very bullish with Fox and NBC ready to pounce on anything ESPN doesn't retain. Unlike the Pac 12 and the Big Ten, who have or will soon have their own networks, the ACC won't have another avenue to raise their television revenue. The Big Ten and Pac 12 have shrewdly allowed themselves the opportunity to control their own destiny as their networks can ramp up carriage fees, distribution, and advertising revenue over time.

Rewinding back here is the play by play of ESPN's chess game...

Humphries, Woods and Vick top Forbes most disliked list

In a list that featured names like Manny Ramirez and Ben Roethlisberger last year, Forbes debuted their most disliked in sports  list with the top five including Michael Vick, Tiger Woods, Plaxico Burress, Ndamukong Suh and Kris Humphries.

Forbes stated the the poll is conducted by “Nielsen and partner E-Poll Market Research, measuring public attitudes toward pro athletes. Players named on the list were those that scored the most responses from people describing them as athletes they dislike, dislike somewhat, or dislike a lot.”

While the mainstream sports fan still has an enourmous amount of hatred towards Michael Vick and Tiger Woods for their previous “indiscretions," it’s surprising that both Humphries and Burress made the list, much less the top five.

As most of you are aware, Kris Humphries is famous for his 36 second long marriage to Kim Kardashian that will surely end up as a messy divorce broadcasted over E!. As much as I want to say the guy deserves to be on this list, it couldn’t be further from the truth. Sure he was a little jerky in the “Kourtney and Kim Take New York” series, but he’s never committed a crime, hurt any animals or stomped on anyone while laying on the ground. His guilt comes from an ill-fated marriage.

Plaxico Burress is another one I don’t understand in being ranked so high. His extremely long prison sentance came at a result of idiotically shooting himself in the leg. Not anyone else. Himself.

Ndamukong Suh makes the list just a year after he topped the “most liked” list. Suh primarily experienced this downward swing in popularity due to his stomping of a Green Bay Packers offensive lineman while he laid on the field. Most recently, he was involved in a car crash that injured others in the vehicle. It was later reported that Suh attempted to force his passengers to lie about why they got into the crash. His hard hitting nature that was once celebrated now just seems like cocky cheap shots.

Lebron James, Terrell Owens, Kobe Bryant, Alex Rodriguez and Kurt Busch made the bottom half of the top ten list. Certainly, the Decision still haunts LeBron as does A-Rod's steroid abuse and Kobe's troubles in Eagle, CO.

So what does this say about the mainstream American fan? Well clearly, we like to hold grudges even if no one else is harmed. But it also proves that it doesn’t take a criminal offense for sports fans to dislike an athlete even if your performance on the field of play is elite above all others. Just avoid shooting yourself in the leg, doing situps in your driveway, or marrying a Kardashian.

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It doesn't matter that The Rock swears live on SportsCenter!

Movie star and Wrestlemania headliner Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson stopped by SportsCenter for a live interview this morning with John Buccigross.  The Rock was there to promote his new movie Journey 2, which is released this weekend.  In addition to his movie career though, The Rock is stepping back into the squared circle to main event Wrestlemania 28 in his hometown of Miami against John "Cena Sucks" Cena.  I guess not everyone can have an awesome nickname like The Rock.  

Buccigross references one of The Rock's millions (AND MILLIONS) of catchphrases by asking about his cooking and The Rock goes into a fancy BS answer.  In fact, he admits as such by casually saying "that's bullshit" and laughing.  

The best part of this happening though is The Rock taking about 2.7 seconds before realizing that he in fact said "bullshit" live on SportsCenter.  The reaction of he and Buccigross is priceless...

On the ESPN Casual Swearing Scale, this still ranks behind both Jaws and Lee Corso.

[Twitvid via BeerMeABeer]

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Watch Will Ferrell introduce the starting lineups at a Bulls-Hornets game

It must have been a long walk for Will Ferrell to get from North Platte, NE to New Orleans, LA.  After appearing in a secretive Super Bowl Sunday ad for Old Milwaukee, Will Ferrell made another random sports related appearance in New Orleans.  Ferrell is actually shooting a movie in the city and he visited New Orleans Arena to introduce the starting lineups for Wednesday night's Bulls-Hornets game... to predictably hilarious results.

Ferrell took a dig at each of the Bulls players during their introductions and then followed with strange/epic compliments for the home team.  It doesn't beat the starting lineup intros for Jordan's Bulls back in the day (maybe the greatest thing in all of sports), but it's a close second...

Bulls

Carlos Boozer: "He still lives with his mother."

Luol Deng: "He collects rare birds and has a pet dolphin named Chachi."

Joakim Noah: "He's a Scorpio and a horrible dancer."

Ronnie Brewer: "He once ate 20 hot dogs in an hour."

Derrick Rose: "His favorite movie is The Notebook."

Hornets

Gustavo Ayon: "He doesn't speak a lick of English, but we still love him!"

Trevor Ariza: "He still loves to listen to Bell Biv DeVoe."

Emeka Okafor: "6'10" from Connecticut where he majored in econ but minored in loooove."

Marco Belinelli: "from Italy, ironically he hates Italian food."

Jarrett Jack: "After basketball, his dream is to become a rodeo clown!"

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Here's the buzzer-beating end to Duke/North Carolina

One of sports greatest rivalries had one of its most dramatic endings tonight. An Austin Rivers cold blooded buzzer-beating three decided the Duke/North Carolina game at the Dean Dome as the Blue Devils won 85-84. Rivers' three completed an improbable meltdown by UNC comeback by Duke as they finished the game on a 13-2 run. Rivers finished his fantastic night with 29 points and a shot that will go down in Blue Devil lore. The win was a crucial one as well for the ACC standings as it knotted up Duke, North Carolina and Florida State at 7-2 heading to the stretch of the season.

Frankly, I'm kind of shocked at how relatively tame Vitale's call of the three was. Don't get me wrong, he was excited, but I expected tables to be flipped over and even more hysteria if Duke ever defeated North Carolina in that fashion. Also, I have to give credit to Jay Bilas, a Duke alum, for being professional during the end of that game.

Duke and UNC meet again in Durham on March 3rd which is finale of both their ACC seasons. I'd think it's a safe bet Vitale will be there as well.

UPDATE: Here are Duke and UNC's radio calls of the buzzer-beater.

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Woody Paige won his 400th fake sports debate show

Congratulations are in order for Woody Paige. Today he won for the 400th time on Around the Horn. Yes, I think this does mean that some extremely unfortunate intern probably was assigned with the unenviable task of tallying the wins of the various talking heads that have populated the show since its debut back in 2002. Woody's 400th win was celebrated with copious amounts of silly string, his daughter and a pie in the face. Here's the raucous celebration video Around the Horn put together for the occasion.

If for whatever reason this sparked an interest in Around the Horn's history for you, I recommend visiting their wikipedia page. There you can find career results, winning percentages and highlights from notable episodes.  All the stats could just be made up for all I know but it's wild that someone apparently has been keeping track.

Personally, I've always kind of enjoyed Woody on Around the Horn. So, congratulations to him for being on Stat Boy's good side for the 400 time.

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Your 2012 MLB on Fox schedule

Pitchers and catchers are a mere handful of days from reporting and baseball season is almost upon us.  Here's your preliminary MLB on Fox schedule for the coming baseball season with regional action on Saturdays throughout the season.  Of note in the Fox schedule is ten straight weeks of primetime MLB on Fox windows from May all the way through the All Star Game in late July.  Also, Fox's MLB coverage will take two weeks off in early August for this little thing called the Summer Olympics.

Saturday April 7 4PM

St. Louis Cardinals @ Milwaukee Brewers

Boston Red Sox @ Detroit Tigers

Kansas City Royals @ Los Angeles Angels

San Francisco Giants @ Arizona Diamondbacks

Saturday April 14 1PM

Los Angeles Angels @ New York Yankees

Chicago Cubs @ St. Louis Cardinals

Texas Rangers @ Minnesota Twins 

Saturday April 21 4PM

New York Yankees @ Boston Red Sox

Chicago White Sox @ Seattle Mariners

Saturday April 28 1PM

Milwaukee Brewers @ St. Louis Cardinals

Los Angeles Angels @ Cleveland Indians

Kansas City Royals @ Minnesota Twins

Saturday May 5 4PM

Chicago White Sox @ Detroit Tigers

Arizona Diamondbacks @ New York Mets

Milwaukee Brewers @ San Francisco Giants

Saturday May 12 1PM

Los Angeles Angels @ Texas Rangers

Chicago Cubs @ Milwaukee Brewers

New York Mets @ Miami Marlins 

Saturday May 19 7PM

Boston Red Sox @ Philadelphia Phillies

Chicago White Sox @ Chicago Cubs

Texas Rangers @ Houston Astros

Baltimore Orioles @ Washington Nationals

Arizona Diamondbacks @ Kansas City Royals

Saturday May 26 7PM

Philadelphia Phillies @ St. Louis Cardinals

Tampa Bay Rays @ Boston Red Sox

Chicago Cubs @ Pittsburgh Pirates

Los Angeles Angels @ Seattle Mariners

Colorado Rockies @ Cincinnati Reds

Saturday June 2 7PM

New York Yankees @ Detroit Tigers

Chicago Cubs @ San Francisco Giants

Minnesota Twins @ Cleveland Indians

Arizona Diamondbacks @ San Diego Padres

Cincinnati Reds @ Houston Astros

DIgger Phelps confuses Thad Matta with Fab Melo

In this extended discussion with Rece Davis and Hubert Brown on Monday night, Digger Phelps started talking about the Syracuse Orange and how they were going to dominate once center Fab Melo's academic issues were cleared up for good. One problem: Digger didn't call Melo by his name, instead calling him Thad Matta. Matta is of course the coach of Ohio State, who plays in the Big Ten, and not the Big East.

In Digger's defense, Fab Melo kind of sounds like Thad Matta. Well, I guess it does a little bit at least. But the two really don't have much in common, being more than 20 years apart and not even having the same job or playing in the same conference, let alone on the same team. Maybe the fact that both teams have white jerseys is what threw Digger off. Or, maybe Digger was just having an off night, which happens sometimes. At least his underlying point was good, and not a giant load of garbage.

[h/t: Lost Lettermen]

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AA Podcast #15 - Kevin Harlan

In the fifteenth AA Podcast, we talk with Kevin Harlan fresh off his experience calling the Super Bowl on Dial Global/Westwood One radio to a nationwide audience. The Super Bowl was one of three games he worked in the middle of a ty