the tom shales espn book

deadspin's been leaking bits all week, loved the snl book (despite being very familiar w/ most of the original cast stuff), feel a little guilty over just how much i am looking forward to this. keith olbermann as chevy chase, chris berman as john belushi, sean salibury as charles rocket, erin andrews as victoria jackson, scott van pelt as tina fey. who else has preordered this thing?

they have an excerpt about olbermann on GQ that im excited to read

psyched for this imo

scott van pelt as tina fey.

lol @ this

i remember olbermann launching espn2 & how ridiculous it was

this thread is the 4th google result for tom shales espn book

welcome lurkers

very much looking forward to this.

We flew from the Texas-Texas A&M game on Thanksgiving night over to Oklahoma State in Stillwater, and when we landed, we heard on the radio there was going to be a big storm that Saturday night with ice and snow. We were hoping they were wrong, because they were going to be playing the game at night, but they weren't wrong. It was horrendous. The field was covered with ice. They played because it wasn't like there was lightning, but it was in the most miserable conditions ever. We were losing cameras and camera men; it was just awful. Finally the game was over, and our guys had to tear down everything. They're still working about an hour after the game, and they see two people sitting in the middle of the stands up there in this horrendous weather. So they go up and see what was going on. Apparently the woman had been drinking at the game and had gotten so drunk that she'd peed her pants and she was now frozen stuck to the metal bleachers. And the guy with her, who was also drunk, couldn't free her. He was trying to pour hot coffee around her to get her out. So now, our guys had to literally chip the lady off the bleachers and get her home.

haha wow...I have to read it, fuck, I really have to

will it confirm the rumors that their Bristol HQ is a sexual harassment theme park?

you need confirmation for that?

that is an amazing story

My copy should be in my mail today, if the amazon.com estimated delivery thing is accurate.

John Saunders:
"Jim Valvano has just been hired as an analyst at ESPN. After his first night on the show, we went across the street to a bar for a drink. Sitting next to us at the bar is an attractive girl & a biker looking dude who keep looking at Jim. Eventually the chick walks over & says "You're Jim Valvano, aren't you?" Jim says "Yes, I am." She says "I think you're very, very cute & my boyfriend doesn't mind if I come & talk to you." Mind you, this is his first day on the job! So she sits & talks with us for awhile, then goes back to her boyfriend, & then comes back again & says "My boyfriend says he wouldn't mind if I went home with you tonight." And Jim says "That's very, very nice of him & I appreciate that, but no, I'm going to have to pass." So she says "Can I at least get your autograph?" She pulls down the top of her pants to reveal her panties & says she wants Jim to sign it. So he looked at me, took the pen, and in big letters wrote, DICK VITALE."

hahahahahah

JIMMY V

that's awesome!

Thinking about getting either an iBook or Kindle download of this, but a) does it have photo sections? and b) if it does, would those be included in the ebook?

yes to a) but it's only maybe 15 pages & nothing u prob havent seen or cant find on the internet

b) yes, but i always find the pictures to be difficult to look at on my Kindle. I bought the real thing here. It's a fucking doorstop.

I'll be buying it for the iPad, so they should look good there. Thanks!

its a super quick read tho, ive read like 300 pgs in a week

Picked it up today, WOOOHOOOO

Katie Ross chapter is prettty interesting.

Alltime-Ugh-Award winner has to be Bill Creasy:

We did have some women on air and on staff, but we certainly were looking for more. I'm a great believer in having a lot of women around you while you work. That was my track record at CBS. I like the idea of having female talent and female executives. I know it's quite sexist, but when you have a pretty girl around the office, it's a little bit happier than having an ugly girl. And if that pretty girl is good, then you've just sort of added to the tree of your growth. I firmly believe that.

There is nothing in that statement that doesn't read Ike a double entendre.

Karie, not Katie

So far my biggest takeaway is that irl Ted Turner is not as far removed from Wil Forte's buffalo-riding Ted Turner on Conan as I would have believed.

Bob Knight:
They gave me three people to choose from who would do that interview, and I picked Schaap because of his dad. I didn't even know the kid. I had Digger tell Schaap that there was a question that I'd like for him to ask, and he refused to ask it. He told Digger, "I can't do that. I can't ask something that he wants asked." I didn't enjoy the interview at all. I thought the guy was a chickenshit little cocksucker. Forget that guy. I have no interest in talking about that. Jesus Christ, enough of this bullshit.

It's like that Olbermann quote: "I dont burn bridges, I burn rivers." For a grown man he really is a fucking child

Enjoying this so far. I wish it had an index.

Found some of the business dealings way more interesting than I expected

Enjoying this so far. I wish it had an index.

― what made my hamburger disappear (WmC), Tuesday, June 7, 2011 1:50 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Mine does.

Interesting that they would leave that out of the ebook. I know I can do a text search for any terms I think of, but it would be cool to be able to browse the index if they've gone to the trouble to create it.

Up to chapter 7. I'm not going to go to the SNL book to check, but it seems like this one has a good bit more 3rd-person interstitial material between the oral history/interview segments to make it flow better.

So many brilliant assholes.

lol

i finished it yesterday. is really grossly congratulatory (& boring) in a lot of the italicized narrative esp as it gets to modern day. idk, anyone reading this prob already knows espn is monolithic & ridiculously powerful, etc...i think maybe im not entirely a fan of the oral history style done to this extreme -- its just a written vers of an episode of i love the 90s w/o funny one-liners

Halfway through. Just finished the part about the Rome-Everett fiasco.

favorite guy so far: walsh. Least favorite: tie between john lack and steve bornstein. The egos on the latter two would make you think one cured cancer, the other AIDS.

oh u just wait for mark shapiro if you want to see some ego at work.

shapiro seems like an egomaniac mechagodzilla, jesus. cannot imagine working under him.

I wanted to climb into the book to strangle Shapiro a couple of times.

Yeah, I think one of the questions I had going into this book was "when did ESPN start turning into the overbearing thing that I still watch for the handful of things it does really indisputably well but ignore the rest of" and the book answered resoundingly, "Shapiro!" It was also nice to see I was not the only person who was really sad when NFL Primetime went away.

This book also jogged my memory that people once actually gave a shit about the America's Cup.

America's Cup is about to have a huge impact on the SF waterfront, for what it's worth. A bunch of businesses are being forced to close or relocate.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/26/industry-us-espn-idUSTRE76P0FO20110726

i'm still slogging my way through this gd thing.

i really thought it would be more fun!

I liked the business aspects of it. It wasnt as salacious as promised, which is fine. There are some serious egos involved with this company (shocking). I think Steve Bornstein and Chris Berman need to be shot. Erin Andrews (and the authors) have a much higher opinion of her own worth than is accurate. Shapiro was actually pretty entertaining. As was the guy at the beginning who worked for Getty whose name escapes me.

Overall a decent book. Doesnt seem movie-worthy though.

watching the last olbermann show was strong reinforcement that i wasnt missing much by never watching this

It was also nice to see I was not the only person who was really sad when NFL Primetime went away.

― C-L, Tuesday, 21 June 2011 00:25 (4 years ago) Permalink

I'm still upset by this, lol. When did that show go away, 2000? I never warmed up to the NFL Network show due to Deon Sanders/Warren Sapp/Michael Irvin sidekicks. I always liked Tom Jackson in that role.

NFL Primetime was awesome!!