When seemingly everyone in the sports media heads to Miami days in advance to cover the Super Bowl, you would expect to see some network crossover.

 

A John Madden or Terry Bradshaw sighting on ESPN early in a week of drawn-out coverage wouldn’t be all that shocking, would it?

Well, maybe it would. 

Tuesday afternoon, Fox’s Jimmy Johnson sat alongside Trey Wingo on ESPN’s SportsCenter Media Day Special  for a brief segment. (By the way, the media gets to talk to players and coaches almost every day of the year ... how does that make Media Day “special”?)

 

The fact that a member of Fox’s high-priced pregame show sat on an ESPN set wasn’t shocking in and of itself. But you might be surprised to hear the story behind the crossover.

This wasn’t “Fox’s Jimmy Johnson” on ESPN. It was “Jimmy Johnson, brought to you by Sam’s and MasterCard.” 

 

We’re serious. 

For the few minutes Johnson that gave insight on the Bears/Colts matchup, the viewing public may have noticed a MasterCard pin on his jacket. And even if viewers didn’t notice, they certainly heard an interruption from Wingo midway through the short Q&A session proclaiming that “Jimmy is joining us courtesy of our friends at Sam’s and MasterCard.” 

There you have it, folks. Just when you thought advertising couldn’t get a stronger grip on the sports world, media members are now being bought and paid for. We don’t know about you, but we’re picturing Johnson being hauled around Miami in a gorilla cage, with the only set of keys held by reps from his two sponsors. 

 

By this time next year, the suit coats of NFL analysts might resemble NASCAR hoods, and John Madden’s eyebrows will be sponsored by Chia Pet. We’d love to be a fly on the wall when the cell phone companies engage in a battle to see who sponsors Sean Salisbury. 

Don’t say we didn’t warn you.

 

(The preceding Pigskin Detention section was sponsored in part by Gummi Bears.)

Crap That Actually Came from Somebody’s Mouth
“I don’t like your profession.” – Skip Bayless to Jay Feely

 

Ironic: Roughly 40 million people would say the same thing about Bayless’s performance as a sports "pundit."
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“Rex Grossman doesn’t have any pressure on him.” – Jimmy Johnson

See what type of insight MasterCard and Sam’s buy? The entire city of Chicago fears that Grossman is going to blow the game for the Bears, but at least there’s no pressure on him.
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“Manning’s triumph gives all of us hope.” – Mike Celizic, MSNBC.com

 

Here's hoping that, one day, we too can be a multi-million dollar athlete receiving verbal fellatio after finally securing a spot in the Super Bowl. 

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“I didn't see nearly as much freak-show type activity at Media Day this year. The clown quotient in the reporting ranks seemed to be at an all-time low. Well, that's not completely true. I did see Chris Berman giving interviews.” – Don Banks, SI.com

 

You have no idea how much more we like Don Banks after reading that quote.

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“Greetings from Miami! After holding its last four Super Bowls in Detroit, Jacksonville, Houston and Kazakhstan, the NFL switched gears and moved the game to a marquee destination people enjoy visiting. Sure, it's a radical idea to have the world's biggest sporting event in a desirable location that features warm weather, dozens of luxury hotels, an endless array of hopping nightclubs and restaurants, a gorgeous beach scene, enough strippers and hookers to wear down Charlie Sheen, high-class shopping and a major airport that flies direct to every city, but give the NFL credit for taking such an enormous gamble.” – Bill Simmons

 

Anyone else sick of Simmons whining about the places to which he gets to take all-expenses-paid trips?

 

Nobody in history has made the journey from “voice-of-the-fan everyman” to “elitist Hollywood media snob” faster than Simmons.

 

Ventre’s Comedy Career Stalls
Michael Ventre, a freelance writer for MSNBC.com (which also publishes Cold, Hard Football Facts content), has taken his share of jabs from us and other media critics. With comparisons of any young, talented basketball player to Michael Jordan and the constant barrage of snippy, extra-cheesy lines, Ventre is far from an entertaining read.

That changed this week with Ventre’s “41 Things to Watch for at Super Bowl XLI,” when he dropped some hilarious gems that made us rethink our stance. Here are four classics that had us rolling around in a fit of side-splitting laughter.

“Inspired by the success of Bears coach Lovie Smith, two coaches attending Super Bowl week will announce they’ve changed their names to Schmoopie Coughlin and Buttercup Del Rio.”

“If the Colts win, center Jeff Saturday will change his name to Jeff ‘Super Bowl’ Sunday.”

“The NFL opted to use Cirque du Soleil as the pre-game entertainment rather than the more divisive Cirque du T.O.”

“The Indianapolis Colts are the visiting team, which means they’ll have to stay in a hotel and bus to the game. The Chicago Bears are the home team, meaning they get to stay at Shaq’s house.”

 

Ha! Isn’t that funny?

 

No, not so much. 

Seriously, Michael: “Schmoopie Coughlin and Buttercup Del Rio?” That’s the type of crap that gets people fired where we come from – and mercilessly beaten.

 

Media Rant
The purpose of most media types at the Super Bowl is simple – seek out controversial material. In most years, the players oblige by shacking up with hookers, snorting blow the night before the game or going clinically insane in Tijuana (Barrett Robbins).

 

That's good copy.

 

But players don't always oblige. The media flounders as a result.

 

Last year, for example, things were slow until the Jerramy Stevens-Joey Porter feud was created. The public watched helplessly as gasoline was poured on the minute spark created when Stevens basically said he thought his team would win.

 

This year, midway through the week, the media is floundering again. There just isn’t anything notable to talk about except – gasp! – the game itself. But who wants to hear about that?

 

The result is a group of writers and talking heads desperately scraping for something to overanalyze. They tried to make a big deal out of the Colts arriving in Miami a day late, but it became obvious it didn’t make much of a difference. By now, the blackness of the two head coaches has been discussed so much that even the media is sick of it. 

 

At least some of the more dogged reporters out there are giving it a shot. Mike Celizic of MSNBC.com chose to pursue the “I’m just going to make up something” angle, with his recent column titled “Is Dungy Too Nice to Win Super Bowl?”

 

Mike Silver of Sports Illustrated went with a trip down memory lane to a time when the media was talented enough to create their own strange story topics … you know, the good old days. He used his platform on SI.com to reminisce about a night before Super Bowl XXXIII that he spent with Atlanta's Ray Buchanan and rapper Luther Campbell. While out and about, the Three Musketeers bought “Ray Bu” (yes, Silver really called him that) a studded dog collar to wear to media day. If there’s anything readers hungry for football coverage love, it's stories in which writers brag about their tight relationships with players. Silver already has a reputation for inserting himself into stories. When he goes out of his way to talk about events from a decade ago, it only validates the reputation.

 

On Tuesday, the phenomenon known as “Media Day” – where the reporters and networks dedicate endless resources to covering themselves – came and went without anything notable. Seriously ... the reporters at Media Day spend more time interviewing each other than they do the players and coaches.

 

What’s left? Or as Jay Crawford of Cold Pizza translated into Media-speak, “Who will be this year’s Joey Porter?”

With nothing surfacing as the weekend approaches, some pundits are left frantically searching for their golden story, while other, less-creative colleagues simply go back to writing about the football game on Sunday.

 

You know all of that stuff above about how the media was having trouble finding a story to beat into the ground? Check that – they've got their hot story now: Marvin Harrison is talking! He can speak. 

 

Quick, all you media members, fetch a story about how Harrison doesn’t speak to any of you all year because he thinks it’s stupid to have microphones shoved in his face every day he goes to work from reporters who regurgitate the same pointless questions. Talk about how this Media Day was historic because Marvin opened up and spoke for an hour. ONE WHOLE HOUR!!!

 

Clearly, you’ll be the first and only one to come up with the original idea that Marvin is no longer silent.

And that was just through a single 10-minute search of the Internet a mere six hours after the Colts’ media session.

 

Great job, Super Bowl media! Keep the same old stories coming.

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