Okay, I know this "competition" (aka popularity contest) on ESPN is a joke to fill time on SportsCenter, but I did find it interesting that - barring a huge upset in the last first-round matchup between Shaq and Michael Phelps - basketball is the only sport whose athletes came from through the first round unbeaten. Well, not counting Tiger Woods, who was the only golfer in it. Tony Parker has been the only lower seed to advance, handily beating Roger Federer, which was predictable in the US league-centric world of ESPN viewers. Seems to me he should also knock off Shaq in the next round. Surely, they made Parker a #7 seed before the NBA finals. Anyway, besides those two, Wade, Nash, Kobe, and LeBron are also in it and won their matchups fairly handily, and I think LeBron is a good bet to win the whole thing. I guess the NBA is still "now", low finals ratings aside.
Basketball is the most SportsCenter-friendly of games, so it's no surprise that SportsCenter viewers would lean heavily towards ballers. It's also worth noting that fans sit closer to basketball players, and see their faces unobscured by helmets/hats/whatever, so there's a greater sense of familiarity. Right or wrong we feel like we know these guys, which is why individuals garner so much popularity but ratings continue to plummet.
Worst thing on ESPN ever, sad to see them going further in the MTV direction everyday. My tuning into ESPn dwindles every single day because of this, as soon as its mentioned.... "what else is on?"
Well, first NBA player lost today with Steve Nash losing to LaDainian Tomlinson by a 2-to-1 margin. I'm not surprised that LT won, but I guess I was expecting a little closer matchup between a 2x NBA MVP and a 1x NFL MVP, neither of whom has one a title and neither of which plays in a really major market. Perhaps the fact that Tomlinson's rise is more recent - and he is hugely popular among ESPN's core fan base of fantasy geeks - made the margin so substantial.
I think the guy from Newsweek said it best when describing this trash they are putting out on ESPN. "so artificial, from concept to execution, that watching it is like chewing Styrofoam"