the tom shales espn book

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!!