What if that same guy put it up for auction and started the bidding at $2 million? You’d probably do the quick math and figure that $2 million divided by 2,500 issues equals $800 per issue, right?

And after you finished scoffing, you’d wonder why such a deal was worth a post here.

Does it change anything that nearly 2,400 of those issues are signed by the people that graced the covers?

Ah. See? I thought that’d get your attention. “But still …” you tell your humble narrator. “Deers, dogs and chicks aren’t really worth $800 each. I can’t imagine how the owner justifies a $2 million asking price.”

You’re a shrewd audience, but I like that. I like that.

See, it’s not just a lifetime’s worth of autographed magazines you could’ve purchased (the auction closed at 11 pm EST today). You’d have paid for a small posse’s lifetime of blood, sweat and hustle. Or maybe just sweat and two parts hustle.

Self-proclaimed “SI King” Scott Smith worked with numerous assistants and inside men with specific connections to people that could procure the king with his prized collection. But the whole lot of his bag men aren’t anything compared to Michelle X.

From the SI King’s team description:

Every great collector should have a good friend like Michelle X. For obvious reasons, I bring my curvy co-worker with me when crashing the best banquets.

Just look at her. Need I say more? When I can’t get Lance Armstrong, she gets two. When Roger Clemens saw her, he crumbled like a little girl and signed five in a row. Patrick Ewing didn’t stand a chance. Michelle’s lined up to do the Heisman, Baseball Assistance Team, Boys Club, College Football HOF, Mets & Yankees Welcome Home Dinners. I’ll be more than happy to lend her out to any collector that ponies up the money! She ain’t cheap and neither is my lender fee! Her services as an aggressive collector are well worth it.

This description reminds me of the high school nerd who falls into money, buys himself a trophy wife and parades her around the 10 year reunion stil trying to beat the bullies of yesteryear. Smith never calls Michelle X a prostitute, but he comes uncomfortably close, doesn’t he?

Lending out aggressive and elegant ladies in exchange for money … sounds pimp-ish to me.

I owned a pair of golf clubs that once belonged to a golfer struck by lightning while on a ninth hole in a Nevada course. But that story ain’t nothing compared to the collection of 2,500 Sports Illustrated magazines signed by 2,400 athletes, athletes’ agents and athletes’ kin.

So, dear readers, the collection is $2 million and the SI King is also offering free shipping.

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Photos courtesy of Scott Smith

It’s time to get off.

Is is the crepes or just an incredibly strong conviction you show toward undoing a man because he’s both extraordinary and not French?

Actually, maybe it isn’t the crepes. That second one sounds more accurate.

The French police went dumpster diving for trash belonging to each team involved in this year’s Tour de France. Lo and behold, the only garbage bag the officials said smelled like rotten eggs was the one belonging to Armstrong’s former team, Astana.

Fifteen containers of hazardous waste and the only one out of the ordinary was Astana’s? That’s, um … Astanashing.

The poor blokes charged with rooting through medical waste claimed to have found an abnormal amount of syringes and equipment for intravenous infusion. (NOTE: Doesn’t it seem like a syringe is an all-or-nothing item to be allowed in sports? Shouldn’t one syringe found in a medical waste container be equally acceptable (or unacceptable) as a dozen?) Whatever. If they found it, they found it. They’re going to test it and then – and I’m editorializing here – they’re going to do their best to trace an illegal substance back to Armstrong’s DNA. And that DNA? They’ve got plenty of it. It’s easy to get when you’re as far up someone’s butt as the French police are with Armstrong.

But this isn’t about him. It never is, really. This is about the ego of France’s highfalutin’ anti-doping agency known as the AFLD. Not only are they targeting Armstrong, but they might be picking a fight with the International Cycling Union (UCI) in order to justify the antagonism.

From the AP’s John Leicester:

They don’t trust each other. Officials at the AFLD suspect the UCI isn’t doing everything it could to combat doping. In a 10-page report to the UCI that leaked to French media, the agency this month accused the cycling body of messing up drug tests at this year’s Tour [... and] claimed that the UCI’s testers granted “privileged treatment” to Astana.

The view at the UCI is that AFLD officials are unreliable publicity hounds. To rid cycling of its drug-tainted image, the UCI has spent a small fortune building one of the most sophisticated anti-doping programs in sports. It rejoiced that, for the first time in years, no rider tested positive at this year’s Tour. It is miffed at AFLD suggestions that its efforts are still full of holes.

So that’s 10 different types of terrific, huh? The AFLD discredits the major international cycling organization in hopes of stirring up enough doubt that Astana would have to be scrutinized all over again. It’s like the new prison inmate who finds the biggest dude in the yard and puts him in the infirmary immediately. Usually that happens when an inmate wants to be left alone, but in this case, the big dude in the infirmary turns out to be the guy protecting the new inmate’s enemy.

That metaphor was awesome. Go ahead and read it again. I’ll wait.

The French police aren’t commenting on why they’re rummaging through medical waste boxes in the first place. It’s a shame because such behavior is abnormal anyway and I bet there’d be a good story there. It would also be a good story if Armstrong just started slapping these people. I’m not even sure the specific identities of “these people” and so I don’t know how many such slappings would need to occur to get the job done. Armstrong might run the risk of developing a sore palm, his arm might get tired, his soft gold rings might start to form into a cheek shape on one side. Undoubtedly there are down sides to slapping a bunch of threatened, muckraking, witch-hunting French folk. Still, the juice is probably worth the squeeze.

Let’s say Armstrong and his Tour de France-winning teammate, Alberto Contador, were cheating, would they really throw the damning evidence in a nearby trash bin for anyone to pick up and sell on eBay? The French seem dead-set on Armstrong having been a cheater for years, but even the French would admit that if Armstrong has been cheating this entire time, he’s been astoundingly covert about it. Seven Tour de France victories in a decade and they’ve got nothing on him but their hunches. It doesn’t make sense for this evidence AFLD claims to have to be what they hope it might be.

Does AFLD’s history of targeting Armstrong mean that this finding is bunk? Not necessarily. Go ahead and investigate, you’ve come this far.

But I’m telling you France, there’s only so long you can jockey on one man’s back before he turns around and smacks you off it.

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Photo courtesy of Flickr

Imagine you had a dirty joke that you like telling in familiar company. This joke you’re imagining is filthy. Heinous. The kind of joke that demands you hunch your shoulders and lean in close to the people you tell it to. Handled properly, there isn’t necessarily anything wrong with these jokes (although there might be something wrong with you for thinking they’re funny), but their relative harmlessness doesn’t mean you’d want to tell this joke over a bullhorn to a group of randomly gathered strangers either.

See? Celtic swingman Marquis Daniels doesn’t get that.

ESPN’s True Hoop blogger, Henry Abbott, posted about the following tweet written by Daniels:

[Sic'd] “Any body got a rednose pit dat u wana breed wit my Orlando raised brown eyed Doberman I have her tail n ears clipped…she’s a prize fighter.”

Abbott goes on to dispel the notion that Daniels is involved in any kind of dog fighting scheme. This isn’t a post about dog fighting. It’s a post about foolish statements being made on a grand scale. Or maybe this is just a post about social media being Grand Scale.

Abbott touches on the idea that athletes need to be more careful on media like Twitter or UStream, but he doesn’t explain why. After all, when the discussions started about Daniels’ tweet, he suddenly set his account to private. Problem solved.

Firstly, Daniels still has his followers, about 1,400 of them before he privatized his account. They all still have access to whatever he says. And if he says anything that the public might take any interest in, Daniels is just an e-mailed screen capture away from hot water all over again. But none of this is news. President Obama calling Kanye West a jackass off the record, only to have it tweeted back on the record – THAT’s news.

But back to that joke analogy from a minute ago … three minutes ago, you say? Well, you’re a slow reader, aren’t you? There are exercises you can do to improve your read speed. See me after the blog.

Most of us wouldn’t dare tell some blue joke in a mixed crowd of different types. There would be too many people to offend. Too much risk of hitting a nerve or sounding uglier than we care to.

Twitter is the bullhorn and when you’re in front of that bullhorn, speakers either understand its power or they crumble underneath it. Marquis Daniels isn’t a superstar, but he’s popular enough that 1,400 people care what he has to say. Lance Armstrong has over 2.014 million followers. That’s only 66,000 fewer readers than the Wall Street Journal.

Think about that. The WSJ is the second most circulated newspaper in the country. Armstrong’s tweets reach as many people as the major newspapers in Chicago, Houston, Phoenix, Denver and Dallas combined. A newspaper’s circulation doesn’t track what particular information a person sees within that paper, what articles or sections they flip through or scour, etc. Armstrong’s 2 million followers sought his profile and subscribed to specifically his feed. What one person says in a newspaper may very well be overlooked by the paper’s subscribers. What Armstrong says in his tweets will not be overlooked by his followers.

Lamar Odom? 124,000 followers. That’s roughly the same circulation as New Jersey’s Asbury Park Press. Chad Ochocinco? 183,000. Similar to Little Rock’s Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Terrell Owens. 197,000 followers. He reaches over 2,000 more people than either the Columbus (OH) Dispatch or the South Florida Sun-Sentinal. Serena Williams? 1.136 million followers. That’s the New York Times plus the Oakland Tribune. Shaquille O’Neal? 2.297 million followers. That’s both USA Today and the Albuquerque Journal.

None of these athletes would blab their Twitter utterings to a reporter at any of these newspapers. Yet here a tweet, there a tweet, everywhere a tweet-tweet.

But don’t stop on our account. For sportswriters and fans alike, the athlete Twitter phenomenon is kinda awesome in the same way watching a drunk punch himself is kinda awesome. We’ll gawk as long as it lasts, but we’re fully aware that many of these situations end suddenly and unpleasantly.

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Photos courtesy of Flickr

Remember when the color red used to signify passion? Perhaps war? Blood, if you’re into specifics? Well take some photos of all that and put ‘em in a scrapbook, because — yes, pictures of red things. No, I don’t know specifically what you should photograph. It was more of a pithy introduction to the blog than an actual suggestion. Besides, I’m the warning guy, not the idea guy. How you take pictures is your problem, but you should do it quickly because Nike is co-opting one of our most beloved colors. Any minute now, Nike’s going to change the way we think about red.

They’ve already started. You’ve already fallen victim. And it’s only going to get worse.

There aren’t too many corporations that have the power to change the public perception of an entire color and even fewer of those corporations that would have any desire to. With Nike, they’re working on a Pavlovian branding tactic. You see red, you think Nike. Not ketchup. Not Corvettes. Not Twizzlers. Not AIDS. Nike.

Serena Williams' U.S. Open 2008 Day Dress. Which, for our color blind readers, is red.

By now most people have identified Tiger Wood‘s “Sunday Red.” It used to be that if you saw Tiger wearing red (pictured above), it wasn’t long until he’d be winning something. Since Tiger has taken the last 15 months off (one way or the other) it’s become clear that Nike has started absorbing additional athletes into its crimson tide. Former tennis champ Maria Sharapova can be seen modeling any number of Nike sweatshirts (also pictured above), the most circulated of these ads featuring the Sharapova Supernova in a brilliant carmine hoodie. Then there’s Roger Federer‘s duds for the U.S. Open, which looked as if smaller, Swiss-y shirts were were made from Tiger’s used Sunday reds (I don’t mean to insult your intelligence by telling you that Federer, too, is pictured above, but I’ve got to make sure we’re covered). Roger Federer? Red. Soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo? Red. Serena Williams? Last year’s U.S. Open dress was widely publicized … red. Dwyane Wade just jumped shipped from Converse (bought by Nike) to Nike’s Jumpman 23 campaign. So, in keeping with the stylistic theme I’m going with here: Dwyane Wade of the Miami Heat? Red (sometimes). Dwyane Wade when he signs with the Bulls next season? Red. Oh, and that Jumpman 23 campaign? That’s Michael Jordan. Bulls again. That’s red. LeBron James? Wine colored. Which we can agree is in the red family, especially when everything else surrounding him is in black and white. And make no mistake, there will be some stars signed by Nike that simply won’t be able to fit red into their on-field color scheme (Lance Armstrong, Troy Polamalu, Derek Jeter, etc.), but then I’d like to direct you to every other commercial Nike has ever done: no color at all.

It’s not that Nike will control how red is used in everyday life, it’s that it’ll soon control how we think of red in everyday life. Soon ketchup will remind us all of Sharapova’s animalistic grunts (if it doesn’t already) and cherry Starbursts will make us recall how sweet it is to be Ronaldo (as should be the intended result of all candies).

You watch. Nike’s not zeroing in on red, it’s using red to zero in on us and all I’ve got is my double-knit, flat-backed mesh red workout shirt to use as a shield.

After winning Wimbledon two weeks ago, 15-time Grand Slam champ Roger Federer was given a timely spot from Nike congratulating their endorsement face of men’s tennis using other such Nike stars as John McEnroe, Pete Sampras, Serena Williams, Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan. The “Love Fifteen” campaign is also a nod to a 2007 ad that highlighted Federer’s background and early life. Both commercials are just two instruments in the symphony orchestra that has been Nike’s athletic commercials in the last 20 years. So because it’s the slowest part of the year and because I feel like it, let’s look back at Nike’s 10 best commercials.

Click the pics after the jump.

10. “Chicks Dig the Longball” (1996)

This ad solidifies Greg Maddux as the best geek-pitcher in baseball history. I’m hoping Tom Glavine at least felt a little uncomfortable asking his teammate if he’s “getting bigger” while naked in the sauna.

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09. “Enjoy the Weather” (2001)

How did no one bring up this commercial after Lance Armstrong said Stage 7 of this year’s Giro d’Italia was way too dangerous? Woulda been ballsy.

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08. “Bo Don’t Know Diddley” (1989)

Someone forgot to send the Great One the memo about not being racist in Nike ads. If Bo can hit a 95 mph fastball, uh, I’m pretty sure he can skate Wayne. Racist.

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07. “Defy” (2006)

This spot best captures Nike’s ability to also illustrate moments in sports and not just the players within them. Here is a collection of athletes suspended in mid-air at different times in different sports.

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06. “Leave Nothing” (2007)

Quick! Name a more intense commercial. You can’t do it. Now take a deep breath and take a guess whether Steven Jackson makes it across the goal line.

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05. “The Spike & Mike Show” (1987)

When you think of Nike, you think of my main man, Michael Jordan. And a lot of why you think of him was because of everybody between ages six and 56 repeating the mantra: “Money, it’s gotta be the shoes!” Still the best pair of Jordans Nike ever made.

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04. “Fenway’s Generations” (2004)

This spot, which was shot and edited in one day, brings a familiar idea into a timely and visually interesting ad. Alas, Nike gets docked a few points for inadequately representing how obnoxious Sawx fans have become over the last few decades.

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03. “Huarache 2K4 Evolution” (2004)

I don’t remember seeing this on television, but it’s possible I just blocked it out of my memory because I hate sandals (especially when they’re from South America) and I just mistook this look at the Huarache evolution as something benign. It’s not, it’s mesmerizing, which is hard to gleam from a sandal.

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02. “Let Your Game Speak” (2006)

Easily Nike’s most cleverly executed spot. It shows off a culmination of everything Nike has learned to do well: Promote a top athlete, subtly orchestrate a viewpoint, encapsulate small moments of sports, while simultaneously adding to the mystique of those moments … plus maximum use of slow motion.
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01. “Trick Shot” (1999)

The beauty of this ad is that it’s all Tiger Woods. It’s not clever, it’s not moving and it’s not slick … because it doesn’t have to be any of those things. An Nike knew that, because Nike is the Tiger Woods of athletic-wear. Now do you get it? See? They belong together.

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All screenshots courtesy of YouTube

]]> http://blog.sportscape.tv/2009/07/18/the-10-best-nike-commercials-of-all-time/feed/ 0 http://blog.sportscape.tv/2009/07/15/in-the-tweet-of-the-moment-how-bad-is-in-game-twittering-really/ http://blog.sportscape.tv/2009/07/15/in-the-tweet-of-the-moment-how-bad-is-in-game-twittering-really/#comments Wed, 15 Jul 2009 16:57:21 +0000 Adam http://blog.sportscape.tv/?p=1334 Has anything gotten more free press in the last year than Twitter? Quick answer: no. And Twitter's leading PR reps in that time have been professional athletes, which is really weird if you think about it. No one wants to hear what athletes have to say, why the sudden interest in what they have to write tweet?]]>
Has anything gotten more free press in the last year than Twitter? Quick answer: no. And Twitter’s leading PR reps in that time have been professional athletes, which is really weird if you think about it. No one wants to hear what athletes have to say, why the sudden interest in what they have to write tweet?

Although it was not the first instance of Twitter in sports, then-Milwaukee Buck Charlie Villanueva sent out a tweet during halftime and caught all sorts of crazy publicity about how unprofessional the act was. Then Shaquille O’Neal did the same thing all sneaky style because a) he wanted to prove he could get away with it – because he’s an egoist and b) he wished he’d thought of it in the first place.

Then the people that get paid to analyze and illuminate sports analyzed this situation and illuminated the whole tweet development as a vaguely negative phenomenon.

Most of Twitter’s sports press either uses them as any other source or as something slowly sapping the blood from their veins. Many writers feel that athletes like Lance Armstrong suddenly have the power to put them out of business, instead of keeping them working in it.

Armstrong boycotted the journalists at this year’s Giro d’Italia, opting instead to send out progress updated tweets, leaving journalists no choice but to tuck their tails between their legs and quote the feed. You have to assume the sportswriters took to Armstrong’s tweets like a busted investment banker takes to serving venti half-caf’ vanilla lattés at his new Starbucks barista position.

All middlemen think they’re worthwhile. You know who doesn’t? Everyone else. The moral of the Armstrong story is that he didn’t want to talk to journalists, so he didn’t. And the common cycling fan was just as empowered to keep tabs on Armstrong as a credentialed reporter. With the way athletes have branded Twitter into the flesh of their public existence, the role of journalist is shifting right along with the definition of what one is.

Cincinnati Bengal Chad Johnson Ochocinco has already threatened to tweet throughout next season’s games even though the NFL said it won’t be tolerated (shocker). Guys like “85″ have the potential to really blow the roof off of Twitter because fans want these tweets to be “real.” Fans want a revealing look into the life experiences of a pro athlete. And while a lot of stars are too corporately managed to say anything worth anyone’s attention, not everyone will be as vapid. Some of the stars that fail to filter themselves in interviews will likely do the same on Twitter, but with tons more grammatical errors.

Granted, not every tweet scheme is gold. Generally unknown and unliked tennis player, Justin Gimelstob, sent messages to a ball girl to pass along to fellow U.S. player Sam Querrey parked on the sidelines. Querrey then updated Gimelstob’s Twitter feed in-game. Technically, there’s nothing wrong with this since Gimelstob himself never posted a tweet. But when you stop to consider the 10 seconds here and there that he used to jot down useless information like scores and one-word adjectives throughout the match, it really didn’t add anything to the fan’s experience of tennis.

And for the scared sports journalists out there who absolutely must attack new social media, your real reason to dislike Twitter isn’t because it threatens sports writing (it doesn’t) but because it encourages athlete’s egos. Gimelstob added nothing with his play-by-play recaps, but he felt he did (similar to how I feel I’m somehow adding to a discussion about in-game tweeting despite most people already having made up their mind about the topic).

If it’s not players mistaking their own narcissism for serving their sport, it’s the media themselves trying to figure out Twitter’s best use. The Washington Post announced Thursday its plans to collect tweets from Nationals fans (all five of ‘em) at the home games over a period of 10 days and then regurgitate them onto the Post. Again, not every use of Twitter is a good one. While I applaud one of America’s most respected news sources for trying … something, this won’t add value. Fans don’t care about random tweets, they care about very specific tweets from specific people (mostly players and important team personnel).

What are we worried about with these in-game tweets? Players becoming distracted? Leaked play strategy for the other team to intercept? Some boneheaded player typing some boneheaded sentiment? All these problems exist already and all have been dealt with. Twitter wouldn’t be any different. What would be different is the unprecedented access to the athlete’s lives. Anyone aware of the reality programming/ tabloid culture we live in understands how our society craves intimate looks into people’s lives. The more famous the better.

But it isn’t just pros getting in on the action. The St. Paul Saints minor league baseball team will host an all social media night where the players and coaching staff are not only allowed, but encouraged to update their Facebook status and send tweety Twitter twittles throughout the game. The pitching coach for the Saints even said he’d tweet while making a trip to the pitcher’s mound.

Sigh.

First of all, it’s a minor league game. I doubt tickets are so scarce that scads of people are forced to stay home watching Twitter feeds of the Saints rattle off for three hours. The fans that care will be there. What are the odds that any of these jokers will have anything to say? Services like Twitter should be an outlet for a pre-existing need, not a void that people should find whatever rubble they can with which to fill it.

But at least the Saints – like the Washington Post – are open to the medium in the first place. It’s a start, right? Every sports outlet in every city throughout the world wants to bring fans closer to their favorite sport, right? Well, ain’t nothin’ closer than the immediate, unedited musings of the athletes themselves.

And although it isn’t a flawless system, it is a promising one that could use a lot more embracing and a lot less chastising.

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Pictures courtesy of Flickr

Here’s a recap of the weirdest or most overlooked sports stories on the Interweb this week. Plus, as you’ve come to expect, an unflappable ability to ask dumb questions no matter what mixed martial artists are doing to us.

Monday I don’t care how much he denies it, Anthony Kim meant to tag this guy in the ass. Golf
Tuesday Can Twitter destroy real journalism? Well, if you’re Lance Armstrong, it’s already replaced it. Sports writing
Wednesday Brooklyn got a little less tough this weekend with this year’s Cardboard Tube Duel. Cardboard Tube Dueling
Thursday Maybe if the London Philharmonic played AC/DC instead of Rossini, the horses would have run faster. Horse Racing
Friday Go ahead and cross Delaware off your list of places it’s okay to stab yourself and then deny you did it. College Football
Saturday The “White Men Can’t Jump” 2-on-2 tourney happened. Mothers were made fun of.  Basketball
Sunday FIU saved its cheer squad and now some want it to be a state sanctioned sport. You give ‘em an inch … Cheerleading
Eighth Day Oh, won’t someone tell “Rampage” Jackson that you can’t go around thrusting your way through interviews?