Post by Jennifer Lynn Jones, Indiana University

Every year I look forward to ESPN Magazine’s “Body Issue,” an interesting if somewhat uneven antidote to Sports Illustrated’s “Swimsuit Issue.” Out now, the issue ostensibly serves as a reframing of the body according to the demands of a specific sport, celebrating bodies “for what they can do, rather than how closely they adhere to prevailing beauty standards.” It typically features female and male athletes posing naked in the midst of activity, discussing their relationship to their body and their sport. Past editions have included sections contrasting the average size and shape of athletes in different sports, charting not only the range but also the value of bodily variation in athletes.

This year’s edition appeared just a few weeks ago, and this is the image that got me excited to see it.

Amanda Bingson is a record-holding hammer thrower from Nevada. She competed at the 2012 Olympics and is a professional athlete with USA Track and Field. And just look at her here! Big! Strong! Tough! Some might say thick but Bingson also calls her body “dense.” The skin rolls on the cover photo don’t seem inhibit her abilities, nor does the cellulite on her hip in the interior spread.

But this is the only cover I found on the newsstand.

Natalie Coughlin is one of the most successful swimmers in the world, has medaled in every major competition in her field, and even holds the record for the most medals received at one Olympics in her 2008 appearance. There’s no question of her abilities; the question here is who ESPN Magazine chooses to feature how and where. For special issues with multiple covers, my experience is that newsstand availability reveals what image the magazine believes will sell best, with those predicted to be less popular going out to subscription holders. Newsstand issues therefore wind up being the most normative image, and the logic holds here: a slim, white, blonde female athlete barely engaged in the actual activity of her sport. In contrast to Bingson, Coughlin doesn’t even have to appear “in action” to prove her worthiness for a cover; her looks are enough. The problematic influence of this particular image of Coughlin was enough for a Swimmer’s World contributor to address.

Coming to the fore here is the conflict between appearance and achievement in sport. Athletic achievement is valued more than appearance: what you do is supposed to matter more than what you look like. This equation best suits predominantly male spheres, although phrases like “fat guy touchdown” reveal how appearance still factors there. Sport is often seen to be beneficial for women because the emphasis on achievement is expected to overcome the focus on appearance, but more often than not, women face a double bind: damned if you conform to conventional female appearance, damned if you don’t. The pressure from this conflict affects all female athletes, but considering that sport goes beyond its fields of play into other arenas–from sponsorships and product endorsements to fashion spreads–appearance often wins out and disproportionately affects those with non-normative bodies: not small, not white, not cisgender, those read “in excess” of expectations.

The release of the 2015 “Body Issue” coincided with debates around the bodies of two other high-achieving female athletes, Serena Williams and Caitlyn Jenner. Williams, the top-selling cover from the first “Body Issue” in 2009 (at top), was near to earning her sixth Wimbledon title when a New York Times article sparked controversy for its discussion of her body. Explicitly about size and gender but implicitly about race, the Times story is just one in a series of attacks on Williams’ body, ruminating on her larger, more muscular body primarily from the perspective of other female tennis players with smaller, white bodies. As Zeba Blay notes, the problem with the Times piece “isn’t about the fact that Williams isn’t tall, slim and a size two. It’s about the fact that she isn’t white.” Race is certainly central here, but size still matters: readings of Williams’ size and race compound and co-construct each other. Relatedly, when Corinne Gaston argues that this “type of body-shaming … comes gift-wrapped in a triad from hell: misogyny, racism and transphobia,” I would add sizeism to the list as well. Furthermore, drawing on Julia Robins’ critique, we shouldn’t allow discourse about Williams’ appearance to obscure her achievements, but neither can we easily separate her achievements from her body. The labors of her body–the acts of shaping and using it so successfully–are also part of her achievements, ones that have clearly given her a competitive advantage over the more conventionally sized/raced/gendered competitors quoted in the Times piece. This disruption of tennis’ identity hierarchies is a further victory, but one that shouldn’t continue to come at Williams’ expense.

Just four days after Williams’ Wimbledon win, Caitlyn Jenner made her first public appearance to receive the Arthur Ashe Courage Award at ESPN’s ESPY ceremony, and comparable controversies followed. As Jon Stewart noted when photos of her Vanity Fair debut first appeared, as a man we could discuss Jenner’s “athleticism, business acumen,” but now that “you’re a woman… your looks are really the only thing we care about.” Achieving femininity involves attaining an approved appearance, legitimated through cover stories like the Vanity Fair spread, but attaining that appearance often obscures other achievements. Many questioned how Jenner could merit the award simply by “putting on a dress,” showing ambivalence in the reception of her presentation: being taken seriously as a woman requires “getting work done,” arranging and engaging in the labor to approximate conventional femininity, but the challenge of that work–physical, emotional–isn’t seen as equal to Jenner’s past athletic achievements as a man. Jenner and Williams were also pitted against each other: comedian D.L. Hughley echoed others’ comments by contrasting Williams’ feminine beauty to Jenner’s and questioning why Williams would be critiqued for appearing “too masculine” while Jenner is celebrated for becoming more feminine. While this double standard should be examined, such assertions also overlook how these oppressions stem from the same problematic system. Recognizing the intersection of these oppressions strengthens their challenge to that system, and hopefully improves the opportunities for more participation and representations of non-normative women within it.

An embodiment of Frontline’s typically trustworthy fare, League of Denial discusses how the NFL reacted to allegations surrounding concussions’ permanent health risks with a combination of silence, renunciation, and meddling. The meddling was principally waged through the NFL’s Mild Brain Traumatic Injury committee, a group of league-appointed doctors that denied any definitive link between football and brain damage. Pushed along by talking-head interviews, the documentary outlines the NFL’s decades-long efforts to soften this controversy, from its initial rumblings to the NFL’s recent settlement with retired players—an agreement that incidentally did not require the league to admit any wrongdoing.

League of Denial was initially a co-production of ESPN and PBS. Frontline and ESPN’s Outside the Lines began a multimedia reporting partnership last November devoted to investigating concussions in the NFL. League of Denial was to serve as the partnership’s capstone. However, ESPN suddenly decided to separate its brand from the project in late August, citing an apparent lack of editorial oversight. Critics understandably surmised that the NFL—a partner ESPN now annually pays approximately $1.9 billion for the rights to carry Monday Night Football­—put the squeeze on the “Worldwide Leader,” a charge ESPN denies. While ESPN removed its brand from the project, the Fainarus are still captioned in the documentary as ESPN employees and the outlet has commented extensively on the project.

We can’t exactly prove the NFL bullied ESPN into kowtowing to its whims. We can, however, contextualize this instance by considering other moments when ESPN 1) has changed its content to satisfy the NFL and 2) advertised its lack of editorial input over comparable programming.

In 2003, ESPN subsidiary ESPN Original Entertainment produced the scripted drama Playmakers. The tawdry “ripped from the headlines” series depicted a fictional football team faced with a potpourri of scandals, from crack addiction to spousal abuse. ESPN marketed the prime-time program during its Sunday evening NFL telecasts, a choice that so irked NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue that he griped to Walt Disney Company CEO Michael Eisner. Despite its popularity, ESPN decided not to renew the series. If the NFL successfully compelled ESPN to abandon a fictional series that never directly references the National Football League, it stands to reason that it might try to put the kibosh on League of Denial—a documentary that makes many of Playmakers’ lurid plot points seem blasé by comparison.

League of Denial emerged alongside a new season of ESPN Films’ 30 for 30 documentary series. In fact, Free Spirits—a nostalgic reflection on the American Basketball Association’s St. Louis Spirits—premiered at exactly the same time as League of Denial. What’s more, ESPN markets these documentaries as embodiments of their directors’ apparently unhindered creative inspiration. It publicizes participating directors as “filmmaking originals” and its website includes individualized “director’s statements” for each film that explain their personal relationship to their subject matter. Frontline—which has garnered nearly every honor a TV production can receive—is far more respected than most of the directors ESPN Films hires to create these documentaries. Anyone out there ever heard of Fritz Mitchell? How about Rory Karpf? No disrespect to Fritz and Rory, but Frontline they are not. Why, then, does ESPN purport to give these filmmakers creative freedom but refuse to allow Frontline—a series that seems to have the television documentary pretty well figured out at this point—to proceed as it sees fit with a project fueled by its own journalists’ reportage?

To recap, ESPN has changed its content to please the NFL and frequently cedes control—or at least claims to cede control—of its nonfiction programming. However, it suddenly decides not to commingle with Frontline after working alongside the franchise for nearly a year because it feared it did not have sufficient input. At the very least, it seems bizarre that ESPN would have such limited knowledge of how a project this high profile was developing so close to its premiere.

The lesson here is not that ESPN seems to cave to the NFL. The NFL is ESPN’s most powerful client and will inevitably color its content—if not through direct edicts, then certainly in more subtle ways. But this is old news. The real takeaway, I think, is the crucial importance of identifying the forces that guide precisely when ESPN decides it suitable (or unacceptable) to give up editorial control and using this context to critique the rhetorical strategies ESPN employs to explain away these suspicious choices. This is increasingly vital as ESPN continues to bill itself—without so much as a smirk—as a site that responsibly probes sport’s cultural meanings while its programming contracts keep the world’s wealthiest sports organizations in business.

College football kicked off this weekend, and it should come as no surprise that one of the biggest stories surrounded Johnny Manziel. The Texas A&M quarterback rose to national prominence last year with a terrific season, winning the Heisman trophy, and garnering the nickname “Johnny Football.” Returning after a Heisman-season is enough to put one squarely in the media’s lens, but Manziel’s off-the-field summer activities made him a much bigger target.

At the beginning of August, ESPN’s Outside the Lines reported the NCAA was investigating whether Manziel was paid for signing hundreds of autographs, citing two witnesses and multiple other sources. NCAA bylaw 12.5.2.1 states student-athletes cannot use their names or likenesses for commercial gain. More and more sources came forward, including an autograph broker claiming he paid Manziel $7,500. Finally, in late August just days before the season began, the NCAA revealed the results of their investigation: they found no evidence of Manziel receiving payment. However, Manziel would be suspend for the first half of Texas A&M’s opener against Rice this past Saturday for violating the ‘spirit’ of the rule. Many questioned the odd decision and the message it sent, some wondering if he got off too easy.

ESPN played up the controversy as they hyped the opening weekend. This promo video from ESPN writer Wright Thompson shows how the network presented Manziel as a superstar celebrity, emphasizing his off-field personality more than his athletic achievements:

After the game, ESPN got exactly what they wanted: not just a great athletic performance but fuel for the fire of Manziel’s cult of personality. Although Manziel had a great game, this was almost entirely overshadowed by his antics on the field, including autograph and money-based taunting and a personal foul for unsportsmanlike conduct. To be clear, this post is not interested in Manziel’s sportsmanship, eligibility, guilt, or otherwise. What is fascinating about this story is how it was reported and discussed on ESPN immediately afterward, and what that reveals about the nature of celebrity, sports, and media representation.

A quick game recap featured on both ESPN’s website and SportsCenter broadcasts introduced Manziel as the “biggest villain in college football.” When the recap reached the unsportsmanlike conduct call, the reporter said, “I suppose when you win the Heisman trophy, you can do things like that,” although he was quick to add, in a somewhat parodic manner, “but it’s just not becoming of a champion.” In other words the quick-style reporting of the incident did not question Manziel’s actions, and even went so far as to play up the antagonistic behavior.

This reporting is in contrast to several analysts’ takes on the situation, including one from Jesse Palmer calling Manziel’s antics “inexcusable.” After reiterating the ways in which Manziel is viewed as a villain (referencing Heisman jealousy and fraternizing with LeBron James), Palmer shifts focus to Manziel’s performance saying, “Now on the field, I love what Johnny Manziel did today.” Here we see the ways in which ESPN (and several fans) are attempting to both celebrate Manziel’s athletic accomplishments while acknowledging and criticizing his personal presentation.

Davis, Holtz, and May

However, a segment featuring two of the networks stalwart college football analysts, Mark May and Lou Holtz, alongside host Rece Davis pulled back the curtain on how ESPN decides to deal with Manziel as both athlete and celebrity. When discussing Manziel’s taunting, Davis claims, “One of the reasons we love Johnny on the field is because he’s flamboyant, he’s reckless, he takes chances… but there’s a line and he’s got to find that boundary and stay behind it.” When Davis says “we,” he might as well be saying “We here at ESPN,” as he is acknowledging the antics of Manziel are what makes him the celebrity figure he is; loved or hated, it gets a reaction from viewers and gives people a reason to watch ESPN.

After Davis continues to play Manziel’s advocate, claiming Manziel made these gestures last year, May and Holtz immediately argue that Manziel has indeed gone too far with Holtz saying, “I don’t think it’s good for the game… It think it’s good for ESPN, but I don’t think it’s good for the game.” Davis immediately responds by saying, “Well what’s good for ESPN is good for the game,” though he barely gets the last word out as he appears to realize what he is saying. In that brief, unfiltered moment, Rece Davis reveals exactly the position ESPN is in; they are a business who’s role is not to support ‘the game’ as an abstract concept, but to profit alongside the NCAA through stars like Johnny Manziel. (Student-athletes’ inability to make money off their own names/likenesses, of course, makes this problematic).

Rece Davis is absolutely right, from ESPN’s perspective, as Manziel’s antics will only drive more viewers to the screen. By creating the persona of Manziel as the villain or heel, ESPN can engage viewers on a more emotional level, giving people another reason to tune it. This is ESPN creating a narrative to further engage their audience. Just like Breaking Bad or professional wrestling, the desire to see justice prevail and villains punished pulls us in deeper and keeps us watching. They are stuck in the middle between glamorizing and promoting the natural celebrity of Manziel while at the same time criticizing the very actions which make him a celebrity in the first place. ESPN wants it both ways. When it comes to showmanship vs. sportsmanship, ESPN are enablers, wagging their finger with one hand and patting the back with the other. It becomes easy to forget that at the center of all of this is a 20 year-old kid from Tyler, Texas named Johnny.

I have a range of thoughts about Nine for IX, which is a step forward for the role of women in ESPN’s 30 for 30 documentary series but also exists outside of the 30 for 30 series in a way that seems problematic: why does there have to be a distinct reason to highlight women in sports compared to the more general goals of 30 for 30, which should be equal across both genders? However, today’s broadcast of the Wimbledon Women’s Semi-Finals foregrounds this question of equality not only within sports, but also specifically within the broadcast coverage of those sports on channels like ESPN (which starting in 2012 became the exclusive television home of Wimbledon).

Today’s 10^th day of play at Wimbledon featured two pairs of semi-finals taking place simultaneously: the Women’s Semi-Finals on Centre Court, and the Men’s Doubles Semi-Finals on Court 1. ESPN’s broadcast coverage was scheduled as the Women’ Semi-Finals, with coverage of Court 1 streaming live online on ESPN3.com (where ESPN has featured streams of all televised courts throughout their coverage of the event). However, throughout the primary coverage of Marion Bartoli’s routine victory over Kirsten Flipkens and Sabine Lisicki’s tense three-set win over Agnieszka Radwanska, ESPN consistently shifted to Court 1 for key moments in the Bob and Mike Bryan’s five-set win over Rohan Bopanna and Edouard Roger-Vasselin.

To be clear, these were not simply short, 15-second status updates encouraging viewers to check out the full match on ESPN3. These were also not short updates taking place during breaks of play on Centre Court, as though to ensure there was active tennis for as many consecutive minutes as possible during coverage. Rather, these were long interludes of play necessitating cross-court updates in the top right corner of the screen on the women’s semi-final that was still ongoing on Centre Court, and in many cases still ongoing with tense back-and-forth tennis (specifically in the case of the Lisicki/Radwanska semi-final, which commentator Chrissie Evert lauded for its show of shot diversity and skill).

Some could argue that this decision speaks primarily to the ethnocentrism of ESPN’s tennis coverage. With no American player advancing to the semi-finals after Serena Williams’ exit in the Round of 16 and Sloane Stephens’ quarter-final loss to Bartoli, ESPN lost a national narrative during what they likely saw as a particularly national timeslot on the morning of the Fourth of July. The Bryan Brothers are long-time stalwarts for American tennis internationally, and are also competing for their fourth-straight major title—ESPN’s choice to highlight their efforts appealed to those who see tennis through the lens of those three-letter abbreviations after each player’s name, some of whom took to Twitter to advocate for more coverage of the Bryan Brothers’ match on nationalist grounds.

However, particularly only days after the debut of Nine for IX, it is hard not to see this as a blow against broadcast equality, a narrative also present on social media during ESPN’s coverage as per the above image. What are the chances of ESPN cutting away from tomorrow’s Men’s Semi-Finals between Novak Djokovic and Juan Martin Del Potro to highlight the Women’s Doubles Semi-Finals? Even if we explore the hypothetical of a prominent American women’s doubles pairing like Liezel Huber and Lisa Raymond—who are no longer playing as a team—competing in the Women’s event, would ESPN ever shift away from Andy Murray’s quest to become the first British man since Fred Perry to win Wimbledon to document the American team’s efforts to make the doubles final instead?

Within Venus Vs., director Ava DuVernay highlights many of the flawed arguments levied equal prize money and equality within tennis in general: men argued—and often still argue—the women’s game is less taxing, less exciting, and less popular (both in terms of attendance and broadcast ratings). Various representatives of the WTA and women’s tennis identified the flaws in these arguments, and in the case of broadcast ratings the counter-argument was that they were cyclical: sometimes women’s tennis is a larger draw, and sometimes men’s tennis is a larger draw.

However, I would argue that if we were to strip away the variables of nationhood and star power driving those cycles, ESPN and other broadcasters still believe men’s tennis is inherently a larger draw than women’s tennis. ESPN wouldn’t have cut away from marquee matchups featuring players like Serena Williams or Maria Sharapova as they did the matchups between these four players, which demonstrates the respect that the highest-ranked—and most recognizable—players on the women’s side have earned. With those players eliminated from the tournament, though, ESPN’s broadcasting decisions reveal their respect for those marquee players has not trickled down to the underdogs, creating a scenario where a battle between the number four women’s tennis player in the world seeking her second-straight Wimbledon final and a perpetual underdog trying to reach her first Wimbledon final is perceived as temporarily dispensable despite a high level of play.

It has long been common knowledge that ESPN’s coverage will be dictated by a homerism toward American contenders and global stars: you could hear the ESPN executives’ dismay when Williams and Stephens both exited, while the early exits of top contenders in both the Women’s and Men’s fields (Sharapova, Azarenka, Federer, Nadal) robbed them of many high-profile matchups later in the tournament. Today’s coverage, however, reaffirmed the intersectionality of sports and sports broadcasting: while the potential for gender equality may exist, it depends on circumstances in which gender equality is properly incentivized relative to higher priorities (and other hierarchies), circumstances that were apparently absent during today’s broadcast.

While the lockout prohibits NHL players from lacing up for their teams (though many of its biggest stars are spending the stoppage participating in international leagues like Russia’s KHL), it has not prevented video game behemoth EA Sports from promoting its annual National Hockey League game.  NHL 13 is now the only game officially licensed by the NHL and the NHL Players Association—the factions currently warring over how the league’s revenues (including those generated from video game sales) will be divvied up.  Beginning the same week the NHL was scheduled to start is 2012-2013 season, EA Sports developed a weekly series of simulations hosted and promoted by ESPN.com that reflect on how the season might have transpired.  Featuring prominently ESPN’s brand and adopting a style similar to the media outlet’s highlight programs, the simulations combine slow motion replays with upbeat voiceover narrations and driving scores to showcase the imagined weeks’ most important and enthralling moments—power play goals, great saves, and so forth.  The simulations also praise the week’s top performances and include box scores for each game, headlines of league news, and even injury reports.  While the real Pittsburgh Penguins center Evgeni Malkin is currently playing for the KHL’s Metallurg Magnitogorsk, his simulated version will be sitting out for 3-4 months with a sprained MCL.  Penguins fans, it seems, can’t catch an actual or virtual break.

The EA Sports simulations are not new.  EA simulated the 2011 and 2012 Stanley Cups and ESPN.com currently hosts weekly Madden NFL 13 simulations of the National Football League’s games.  These productions grow out of a partnership between EA Sports and ESPN that started in 2005, when EA paid the “Worldwide Leader” $850 million for 15 years of advertising and the exclusive right to use its brand in games.  Since the deal was struck, these two titans of sports media have worked in concert to build each other’s images and increase their already expansive market share, demographic reach, and presence across multiple platforms.  “When you think about brands that should be together and work together,” said current ESPN president John Skipper shortly after the deal was struck, “I think EA represents in video games what ESPN represents in broadcasting and media assets.”  EA and ESPN typically frame the simulations as showcases of EA Sports games’ sophisticated capacity to provide information reliable enough to help fans set their fantasy rosters or place actual bets.  “Before you fill out your pick ’em pool or make that final fantasy lineup adjustment,” notes ESPN.com, “the Madden engine can provide that last bit of insight.”  Along different lines, EA and ESPN have used the NHL labor stoppage as an opportunity to market their simulations as outgrowths of the fan-centered populism on which each brand trades: “EA Sports brings you the NHL games, stats and standings that you were supposed to see.”  The simulations, they suggest, are gifts designed to tide over hockey-hungry fans that deserve better from the sports they cherish.

Corporate altruism notwithstanding, the NHL simulations indicate that while the content of EA Sports’ games rely primarily on the organizations they pay handsomely for the license to depict, they use ESPN to build, celebrate, and circulate those games’ meaning and value.  Beyond hosting the simulations, ESPN.com incessantly plugs their authenticity and only briefly, if at all, mentions games that are competing with EA Sports’ titles.  Moreover, ESPN typically situates its promotion of EA Sports’ products and developments as reportage.  In doing so, it suggests that EA products are the only sports games on the market worth note—an attitude that, given ESPN’s enormous reach, dissuades potential competitors from trying to chip away at EA Sports’ market share.

The simulations also illuminate the conspicuously thin line between ESPN’s coverage and its promotional activities and obligations.  When the NHL simulations first appeared in early October, a few frustrated commentators cynically huffed that ESPN is now providing the NHL with more coverage than it did when the league was actually in operation.  Indeed, ESPN has greater incentive to cover the simulations—which feature its client EA Sports along with its own brand—than it does to provide the actual NHL, an organization it has not possessed the rights to cover since 2004, with anything more than brief and relatively sporadic acknowledgement.  Though the simulations are relatively unimportant novelties within the ever-expanding universe ESPN has constructed, they usefully—though somewhat dismayingly—suggest the media outlet’s business partnerships supersede its publicized commitment to report on the sports world.

While the simulations showcase a virtual NHL season, they are remarkably actual advertisements.  EA Sports and ESPN’s combined efforts to expand sports media’s technological and interactive possibilities simultaneously work to restrict the branded horizons within which this potential can emerge.

The National Basketball Association’s lockout began July 1 and reached a provisional end on the day after Thanksgiving, but even if you’re the most casual of sports fans, chances are, you knew this.  And even if you’re the most casual of casual sports fans, chances are, ESPN played no small role in informing you about the work stoppage, introducing you along the way to vaguely noxious MBA-speak like “basketball related income” and “amnesty clause.”  All the while, non-ESPN media squawked about the lockout simply being a squabble between the rich and the super-rich; about how basketball isn’t football; even about how boring ESPN’s coverage of it all was.  I won’t deign to tell you WHAT IT WAS REALLY ALL ABOUT, though I tend to agree with Charles Pierce that by focusing so intently on money, we tend to miss the bigger picture.  Accordingly, I’d like to consider briefly not the content of the various back-and-forths among players, owners, and sports pundits, but the broader implications of ESPN’s mediation of this dialogue for televised sports.

If there is a takeaway point from Tom Shales and James Andrew Miller’s eminently skimmable (and purposely, polemically gender-biased) oral history of ESPN, it’s that the network fancies itself to be lifestyle television.  This manifests both in all the most banal ways you think it does (incessant talk of “the brand” and other Disney-fied corporate logics) and in more insidious ones that seek to make “ESPN” and “sports” as interchangeable as possible in viewers’ heads.  ESPN has a mixed, sometimes hilariously bad history of extending its own brand beyond the viewing moment, so its most valuable commodities are often the personalities on display in its programming.  Pardon the hacky Bill Simmons-ism, but if ESPN is Bravo, then at the present moment, the NBA is its Real Housewives, Top Chef, and Andy Cohen all rolled into one.  (The comments section is yours to work out the Housewives equivalents of the Miami Heat’s big three.)

This is not to ignore the significance of ESPN’s relationships with the other two major American professional sports leagues, but crucial differences exist between them and the NBA.  The NFL–the indisputable televised sports juggernaut of the recent past and forseeable future–contracts with three out of the four major broadcast networks and a number of cable (including the prized Monday Night Football franchise on ESPN) and satellite outlets.  Television is the NFL’s cash cow, and viewers seem to enjoy watching it.  MLB’s television interests are similarly spread among several broadcast and cable outlets, with myriad regional sports networks picking up the slack.  But baseball–with its 81+ home games per team per season, summer weather, and Tony LaRussas giving fans multiple opportunities for trips to the concession stand–prizes gate and gameday revenues much more than football does.

While it has long thrived on elements from both models, the NBA has become a decidedly more television friendly league, with ESPN leading the way.  In fact, the league’s only broadcast presence is with the also-Disney-owned ABC.  (TNT provides the other significant chunk of NBA coverage, but the netlet is more interested in using basketball as a promotional vehicle for Rizzoli & Isles than it is in building a brand identity around it.)  The outlets fortuitously renewed their deals with the NBA after a poorly rated Finals series in 2007, and it seems fair to say that ESPN was getting an undervalued property.  A change to the hand-checking rule the year before catalyzed a surge in league-wide scoring, and the LeBron-led class of stars would be entering their prime (and free agency years) over the course of the following decade.  Part of the pact also afforded ESPN wide-ranging use of the NBA’s digital content, an element commissioner David Stern saw as key in spurring the league’s global growth (and one that stands in stark contrast to other sports’ digital policies).  For ESPN, the NBA was fast becoming the most fertile land upon which to plant its flag as “The Worldwide Leader In Sports.”

It goes without saying, then, that ESPN had much riding on the resolution of the NBA lockout, not so much that it might be accused of anything unethical, but certainly enough to be guilty of belaboring viewer interest in the minutiae of labor.  Its lockout coverage arguably started in earnest with last summer’s “The Decision” special on the free-agent status of LeBron James, a stunt aimed just as much at stimulating interest in non-NBA fans as it was at narcotizing the resentment of NBA die-hards about the upcoming work stoppage.  Or, it’s the other way around.  I don’t know.  Either way, ESPN’s NBA coverage since “The Decision” has been not about uncovering the real issues behind the lockout or picking sides between players vs. owners or Dirk vs. LeBron.  Instead, its goal has been to breathlessly, relentlessly fuel the idea that discovering that truth or picking a side matters.  If you care not for such things, if you like your displays of athletic competition virtuous and untouched by the tentacles of capitalism, well, there’s always the college game.

Next question:  Had it worked? Had ESPN’s Bill Simmons, champion of all things Boston, succeeded in organizing a series of live fan-chants during the game?  It turned out that he had, at least in part.  Via his twitter account “CelticChants,” Simmons suggested three taunts that the Boston crowd might hurl at the visiting Cavs.  The first one, “New York Knicks! New York Knicks!”, aimed at Lebron James and his aforementioned free agency, had in fact taken hold.   As the superstar took his first free throws, much of the crowd shouted in unison, an act the announcer Mark Breen described as “creative.”  Simmons’ other two suggestions were met with middling results.  But, unquestionably, the first one was a hit.

My reaction to this result is unambiguous. I don’t like it for a gamut of reasons ranging from the aesthetic to the (mildly) philosophical.  For one, it strikes me as kind of lame.  There was a sense of corporate supervision in the suggestions, with the second chant of “Rondo’s Better,” being particularly uninspired.  Yes, I’m somewhat relieved that the previously mentioned idea of yelling “Precious, Precious” at the terribly overweight Shaquille O’Neal didn’t take hold in a Boston crowd whose racial sensitivity is sometimes questionable.  However, to me, if there’s an essence to crowd activity, it’s organicism, or at least home-grownness.  I’m not interested in anything that Robert Iger has potential say in.

Secondly, if the experiment is to see if such a thing can work – if new media can succeed in stirring this brand of collective action – then, well, it’s not a very well controlled inquiry.  Simmons, with access to all the mass audience Disney can muster, isn’t much of a test case.  It reminds me somewhat of Kim Jong-Il heading out to the golf course with an army of assistants to see if the game’s as tough as everyone says.  What do you know, beginner’s luck.  This isn’t the end of the world, but it strikes me as both a blurring of lines and really vain.  I’d feel better if Simmons had skipped the ESPN.com promotion of the idea or, even better, if a true “everyday fan” had given it a shot.

That said, Simmons and his unique power to turn commentary into real life action did bring me a great deal of joy this weekend.  I finally picked up David Halberstam’s The Breaks of the Game, a book that had been out of print for ages and still would be, were it not for Simmons’ repeated recommendations.  It’s a fantastic, truly important sports book that thousands would be missing out on if not for the Sports Guy.  So perhaps I’ll give him a pass on the chant thing. But my weekend certainly brings into sharp relief the power of an Internet star and some of its potential abuses.

The Sports Guy, also known as Bill Simmons, got his start in journalism online, reporting on his beloved Boston teams from the perspective of an unabashed fan at Digital City Boston before coming into his own on ESPN.com’s ‘Page 2’ and ‘The B.S. Report’ podcast.  While he’s written two books, his primary mode of engagement is throughly rooted in new media: he blogs, chats, podcasts, and tweets religiously.

He’s a sportswriter, but unlike, the melodramatic musings of, say, Rick Reilly, Simmons is actually a pop intellectual masquerading as a sports writer.  He simply views the enormous sphere of American popular culture through the lens of sports and its attendant structures, emotions, reception, gossip, and metaphors.  Sometimes this unification is manifested overtly; at others, he eschews explicit sports talk altogether, opting instead to spend an entire poll, column, or podcast detailing the Blackberry for cheaters (trademark: ‘The Infidel’), the merits of Friday Night Lights, or the best ‘first boobs’ film moments.

To facilitate the process, Simmons has amassed a vast network of regular pop culture guests, including Chuck Klosterman, Jon Hamm, Adam Carolla, TV critic Alan Sepinwall, and SNL’s Seth Meyers; he also calls on longtime friends and colleagues (Jack-O; ESPN producer and ‘reality TV czar’ Dave Jacoby) to discuss specific shows, sports rivalries, and scandals.

But why does Simmons matter — and is his style really anything new?  Crucially, he rose to fame by writing in a blog-style before blogs even existed, gaining a tremendous (albeit niche) readership, then parlaying that popularity into a national readership.  He’s basically the journalistic version of the YouTube musician.  He cares little for long-form investigative journalism or even interviews with the players.  He’s a fan, and wants to stay that way — thereby increasing reader identification and loyalty exponentially.

And don’t forget the fact that he’s a.) funny and b.) totally a Beta-dude.  In other words, he’s a guy’s guy, but by no means an Alpha jock; his very existence validates your cerebral, thoroughly armchair-based sports obsession.  For while his beloved Red Sox are historically a working man’s team, Simmons and his fan base represent the new brand of white collar, fantasy-league-centric sports fan — the only fans still wealthy enough to buy seats outside of the nosebleeds.  These fans — male or female — can engage in the sort of pop culture puzzles and analogies favored by Simmons, writing into his Mailbag and participating in chat sessions, because they work at sort of desk jobs that create space, both intellectually and technologically, to do so.

Finally, Simmons is theoretically a conglomerate’s dream — albeit an imperfect, glitchy one.  He increases the loyalty of pre-exisiting ESPN while pulling in those, such as myself, outside its expected reach, simultaneously consolidating and expanding the ESPN brand.  And while he’s quick to chide the ESPN powers-that-be, he also deftly promotes ESPN products, including the recent 30 for 30 series for which he served as an executive producer.

But Simmons’ intrinsic conglomerate value lies most explicitly in his potential to create non-traditional lines of synergy, promoting media products within his home conglomerate’s galaxy.  ESPN is owned by Disney, creating any number of possible connections.  But for now, at least, Simmons has succeeded in resisting whatever pressure Disney may or may not have leveled.  He appears to interview people and talk about shows that he likes, including those, such as The Wire, that are about as far from a Disney product as possible, regardless of network or studio.  Nevertheless, Simmons’ style of commentary — niche but broad in both audience and in topic, complimented by a diversified means of distribution — seems to be a potential model of journalism, sports or otherwise, for the future.