Who's Now?

ESPN is a cruel mistress, simple as that. ESPN was great a little over a decade ago, then they got bought by the mouse in 1995. Ever since, ESPN has gone downhill in a horrible crashing and burning fashion and it irritates me to no end. Among my major dislikes with ESPN, some of the notables are as follows...Stuart Scott, Stuart Scott's Eye, Skip Bayless, anything Chris Berman that does not pertain to leather, the forcing of Nascar upon the masses, human interest stories on Sportscenter, anything involving the Make A Wish foundation, 75% of the Sportscenter anchors, Keyshawn Johnson, Stephen A. Smith, and the most recent piece of garbage, the Who's Now bracket. If this comes off more as a soccer fan complaining, I am sorry.

Starting in July, ESPN got the idea to put together a bracket called Who's Now. The point of said bracket is to try and determine who the ultimate god of sports is...or something to that effect, through the analysis of their "on field success and off field buzz" whatever the hell that means. Split into four brackets bearing the names of legendary athletes, we get match ups such as Tiger Woods and Matt Leinart, Peyton Manning and Amanda Beard, Tom Brady and David Ortiz, Ronaldinho and Kobe, and Beckham and LaDainian. Before I get into my two major issues with this, I want to run down some of these match ups that they have.

Tiger Woods and Matt Leinart:
Tiger Woods is the number 1 ranked golfer in the world, he's married to a model and they recently had a child. For every win he has (of which there are many), Tiger gets paid in the millions. Not only that, he also has millions of dollars in endorsements. Matt Leinart plays for a shitty team, I haven't seen him in a commercial where he is endorsing anything since the draft in 06, and he's got a kid with a college basketball player (despite her hotness), I don't know about you, but I think this is a little ridiculous to even consider. They might as well just give Tiger a bye because there is no way anyone in their right mind would pick Leinart.

Peyton Manning and Amanda Beard:
Payton got the Super Bowl finally, after choking year in and year out for the previous 6 or 7 years, and he makes annoying commercials. I'm a little biased, but there is not a single athlete I hate more than Peyton Manning. We get it, your dad played in the NFL and your brother does too...your commercials and your family still don't make you less of a douche. On the contrary, Amanda Beard is an olympic swimmer. That means she has competed with the best in the world and won...not to mention she did it a lot of it when she was 16. She is also hot, I don't care how much air brushing was involved, she was hot in the Playboy issue and she is also a swimmer so that means she has a very nice body and can probably go for hours on end. I am ok with that, so she wins.

Ronaldinho and Kobe:
This is where ESPN pisses me off. You want to get Kobe to advance, but you know it won't happen in an ideal way, so you put him up against an athlete who should, by all logic win, but won't because it is soccer and this is America. Being such, only about 30% of the population are enlightened enough to realize the stupidity of choosing Kobe. Ronaldinho has been player of the year in the world's game, won the world cup, plays for one of the top teams in the world, plays against some of the best athletes in the world, is known worldwide in a better light than Kobe, and is one of the poster boys for soccer. Now, conversely, Kobe is essentially the same for the NBA, there is only one difference. THE WORLD LIKES SOCCER BETTER THAN BASKETBALL.

Beckham and LaDainian:
Don't get me wrong here, I like LT. But LT hasn't done shit, sure he has the records, but how many Super Bowls has he won? David Beckham has won championship after championship throughout his career, he is THE poster boy above everyone else when it comes to soccer, he has played in 3 World Cups and scored, and he has made a resurgance enough in his career to be brought back to the two teams he was exiled from, Real Madrid and Englands National Team. He is also coming to America in about 3 days to play in the MLS for a contract that with endorsements will be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. The guy is complete tabloid fodder everywhere in the world and will be here when he arrives, but, once again ESPN wanted to try and give someone they want to push a free pass. As such, Beckham, despite being one of the few people in here who could justifiably win, loses because that is the way the 70% of America view soccer.

First, if ESPN wanted to ignore the world stage, which apparently they do, they shouldn't have included the athletes who are available on the world stage like Shaun White, Amanda Beard, Ronaldinho, Beckham, etc. If so, they need to take that into account and modify the seeding they used because in all reality, Beckham should be higher than a 7 seed and Ronaldinho higher than a 6 seed because of the criteria used.

Second, if ESPN wants to have any kind of credibility they need to have a different panel for the discussion on Sportscenter. Keyshawn Johnson, Mike Wilbon, and Kirk Herbstreit have to be the biggest joke of a panel I have seen since American Idol. Wilbon is the ultimate hater of anything worldwide, Herbstreit is just a jackass, and Keyshawn Johnson is the biggest joke of an analyst I have ever seen and the only reason he has a job now is because they needed a new obnoxious former NFL player to replace Michael Irvin. I would almost rather have Skip Bayless involved than either of these three and I utterly despise Skip.

Maybe, one of these days ESPN can bounce back from their wayward path and become the great channel they once were when I was in elementary school and I would watch with my brother every morning. Until then, I guess there's always Fox Sports and Deadspin.