Too much of a good thing

It's almost too perfect of a situation to frame this particular rant.

The Bears just demolished the Saints, 39-14. They are headed to the Superbowl, as underdogs, against the Indianapolis Colts.

Bookies had the Bears as 2 1/2 point favorites, and made a ton of money as people continually took their money and put them on the Saints.

What some people may not know is that in the span of 3 days, the line fell 3 POINTS from 5 1/2 to 2 1/2. What the hell happened in that amount of time that almost completely altered the line of the NFC Championship game?

No one was injured on the Bears - no one. The Saints, in fact, were the only team to lose a guy during the week when they declared Joe Horn officially unable to play sometime on Thursday. What did the bookies learn over those two days that made them think that the Saints could pull this thing off?

Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Not one football thought or fact actually played into the line of the game moving. It moved because everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, put money on the Saints. I don't know how they would have covered those losses had the Saints actually covered the spread, because 3 people on earth would have lost.

The bookies moved the line because they were scared shitless. When the money is almost even, the bookies do okay and don't really have to worry about who wins or covers the spread. However, when everyone and their mother takes a certain team, its panic time. Everyone winning = them losing, and they can't have that.

With the line lowered to 2 1/2, the action was still all Saints. My guess is that a bunch of odds makers actually, for the first time in playoff football history, considered actually changing who was the favorite of the game midweek (at least the first time when someone was almost a touchdown favorite).

But last second, someone said something logical. "If you look at this game honestly, I think the Bears are actually the real favorite to win this thing. Let's stick it out." I'm guessing a "if we lose this its your legs, buddy" type of deal amongst them all, and they decided to give football logic the benefit of the doubt ahead of mass football hysteria.

And wow, did that decision pay off. Congrats bookies. You didn't buy the story.

What story?

The sports story that was being sold to American people on a daily basis, courtesy of ABC/ESPN. You see, ESPN actually had every single one of it's "experts" pick against the Bears. They ran features on the Saints. They routinely played them up as "unstoppable", "poised"; a team of destiny. The Bears were continually portrayed as lucky and clumsy; their QB presented not as a first year starter being the central difference in his team making the Superbowl this year, but as a man so terrible at his job, they routinely called on faulty AP reports that he was going to be benched, and even had the audacity to frame his 282 yard performance against the Seahawks as sub-par.

What resulted is a real story. 100,000s of people are out big money, and look pretty stupid right now taking a dome-team road-dog in the NFC title game. People ate up this "analysis" like it was gospel, and they are all paying for it now.

You see, no one with a hint of football logic could be that shocked the Bears won. In fact, looking back on the game now, its almost ridiculous to see how the Bears weren't at least a 7 point favorite. A 5 1/2 point line was pretty tight considering all of the shortcomings of the Saints team.

But no one heard about those. It wasn't in the storyline. You see, ESPN is the network that changed the world as we know it. The fact is, almost everyone has an affinity for some sport or another (if not all). People use it as a way to come together, to converse, to celebrate, and most of all to get away. Humans will always love to have fun, and sports are just that - fun. We pay too much money to watch, we invest too much energy and time caring, we lose perspective on its real role in the world, and yet, this all being the case, it doesn't seem that evil after all. When the idea of televising sporting events on a daily basis, 24/hrs a day came into being, we ate it up. We watched sportscenter to see the scores, we watched ESPN2 to see stuff we never saw before. But then it became uncool to watch weird sports (when nothing else was on to televise), not universal enough to televise obscure collegiate sports or other semi-pro type events, and so ESPN eventually realized they had more airtime than they could conceivably fill with live sports or highlights of those sports.

But instead of staying true to the mission, and keeping the idea of ESPN an enjoyable experience for everyone - they took it in a different direction. Instead of covering the actual sporting events, they decided to talk about them, using opinion-based shows and interview-style highlight segments. While the connection between the sports world and the real world was one that they did originally try to cover (and did so pretty well), they eventually found that taking on real issues and real stories wasn't always exciting on a daily basis, so they decided they had to invent story lines. Suddenly it began to grow: The homerun chase of '98 was really the baptism of this type of sports coverage. Sosa and McGwire, crowned by the same network that is now out to tarnish them, were used to "save baseball" - and also save Sportscenter from actually covering sports news thoroughly and accurately. Later, Kobe vs. Shaq was one of the storylines that the network covered ahead of actual sports. Once that ended, there was Phil Jackson insanity, followed by Belicheck being crowned a genius, followed by the birth of the T.O. phenomena, which went right alongside the obsession they had with a certain sports agent, followed by an obsession with Bill Parcells, followed by all things Barry Bonds, followed by T.O..the Red Sox..Bartman...etc...

But stories are, although often untrue, usually popular. They become gossipy. They are debatable, mainly because so much opinion can be used and so little fact needs to be presented. And this, apparently, appeals to viewers and proves to be some form of satisfying entertainment for many. Although, for me it seems a lot more like Entertainment Tonight than an actual sports broadcast.

This isn't to say that sports doesn't ever produce storylines. But there's a difference between covering sports and seeing a story develop naturally, and trying to plant one where one just refuses to grow. Apparently, people want to hear these finely crafted stories more than ever - because ESPN is clearly a healthy corporate entity. But what if reality just flat out refuses to cooperate with the script?

Today, Bill Parcells, a huge ESPN character for many years, retired and an honest reporter was covering it for the "boo-yah"s. The story was presented, the facts were read, but before the guy could get off the air, the host of the show asked "Did he retire because of T.O.?"

One last try to squeeze this event into the world of an invented ESPN storyline. Simply stunning. To the guy's credit, the reporter completely dismissed the comment as strange and ridiculous and signed off. The dumbass anchor went on with his moronic monologue.

Which takes me back to the Bears/Saints game, as it compares to the Bears/Saints invented storyline.

The article currently on ESPN's NFL Tab, AFTER THE CHAMPIONSHIP GAMES ON MONDAY. Yes, this is what is on the website. I joked with a friend that we would have to listen to two weeks of Saints coverage before the Superbowl (even though they aren't in it). So far, I am right for the first day of week 1. No joke.


Once again, reality and the story just don't match, and the network that has created it cannot admit to being the spoon stirring the pot. There will continue to be a lack of resources and energy spent on covering the actual game this week as we head to Superbowl XVI. No doubt about it, the wrong teams won the game as far as ESPN is concerned, but they aren't going to let it stop them from jotting down a few more lines in their scripts.

And why not? Everyone loves ESPN. They are the worldwide leader.

Although, can we now safely ask them, "the worldwide leader of what?". It sure isn't sports.