In one corner stands CNBC's Darren Rovell.  This sports business reporter hasn't just emerged as the top source in his field, but has also emerged as the self-appointed czar of all things Twitter.  He even celebrated passing the 100,000 followers plateau with a list of 100 Twitter rules.  Surely the modern day equivalent to Martin Luther nailing his 95 Theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany.  Since then though, Rovell has found another life as the Lex Luthor of Twitter.  He has been caught in battles with everyone from political reporters to late show writers to sportswriters and seemingly anyone in-between because of his unapologetic Twitter sovereignty.

In the other corner stands Sports Illustrated's Richard Deitsch.  Himself a veteran of the Twitter wars with his ongoing conflict with ESPN PR making the Hundred Years War look like a small disagreement over tea.  Deitsch boasts just 35,000 followers, but has the utmost respect of the industry.  This sportswriter combines his robust media reputation with a sharp sense of humor and biting critiques while also going outside sports to provide relevant, interesting information.  

But to know the significance of these two gladiators stepping inside the Twitter squared circle is to know their history.  At Blogs With Balls 4 in New York City, Deitsch and Rovell shared the first ever award for "Best Sports Tweeter."  The two men have traded barbs on Twitter for quite some time in a back and forth fight for ultimate sporting Twitter supremacy.  (To make it clear from the start, we're fans of the work of both Deitsch and Rovell as both have their qualities that make it worth your time to follow.)

However, Deitsch and Rovell had never engaged in a public Twitter debate.  Rovell's famous (or infamous) policy of not replying to anyone so as to "clog timelines" came under heavy fire as his DM/Unfollow deathblow became the stuff of mythical Twitter legend.  Instead of replying and having a conversation with combatants, Rovell took the tact of sending a private direct message and then unfollowing the person.  Underhanded tactics in the eyes of many.  (***Update: After speaking with Rovell today, he claims the much talked about DM/Unfollow double hammer was a misunderstanding and he had unfollowed those individuals well before the DMs.) This week, Rovell changed this policy after another one of his famous (or infamous) Twitter polls revealed that his followers wanted to see his replies play out in public.

It was only a matter of time before these mega Twitter powers exploded, which they did Wednesday night.  It started over a simple tweet about tennis.  But make no mistake, this was not about tennis.  This was about two Twitter titans, finally going head to head for the world to witness.  Rovell vs Deitsch.  Deitsch vs Rovell.  Here's how it played out...

(And yes, I'm well aware that this overly dramatic, completely unnecessary, and drawn out description of a Twitter fracas like it's a World Championship fight is totally ridiculous and not newsworthy in any way... but it sure is fun.)

Schadenfreude: Satisfaction or pleasure felt at someone else's misfortune.

Announcers rarely get the opportunity to revel in the glory of epic schadenfreude. I'd imagine that it's probably considered in poor taste by their employers and within the industry.

Luckily for Chris Fowler and company, the stars lined up as they were able to add live commentary to this epic meltdown by Marco Baghdatis. Rather than running from the hilarity of this tantrum, Fowler embraces the moment and goes with a more light hearted approach. At the end of the day, destructive rage can be entertaining at times so why not just sit back and enjoy rather than adding to the tense moment?

There's a good reason Rob Lowe is trending all over the world right now, he LITERALLY has everyone talking about the wild "news" he broke on his twitter account. That news being that one of the most accomplished quarterbacks of all-time, Peyton Manning, is retiring.

So, should you trust the guy that hosed down Tommy Boy at a gas station? Possibly. The first person Colts owner Jim Irsay followed on twitter was none other than Rob Lowe. So, yeah, there likely is some type of relationship between these two or possibly Irsay might have just been a huge fan of St. Elmo's Fire.

With Manning possibly retired, this makes the Colts offseason less awkward and simplifies the plans for them to draft Andrew Luck and insert him at starting QB. While it's rough to see one of the all-time greats retire due to injury, most will probably not miss him much as I'm sure he'll still continue to endorse LITERALLY every product known to man. Hopefully he will host SNL once again.

But yeah, Colts fans might want to wait on a news source more solid than Chris Traeger before trusting this huge news.

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Check out this clip from WCJB-TV in Gainesville, Florida. Anchor Chris Price is cutting his tease in front of the camera, and all of a sudden, the teleprompter rolls across the screen. I think Price played it off pretty well, not getting flustered and just kind of laughing about the situation. He didn't finish his tease though, aside from getting the obligatory Tim Tebow mention in (which is pretty appropriate for a Gainesville station...gotta get Tebow highlights in whenver possible!)

Price is embracing the situation on his Twitter, and doesn't seem angry or upset about the situation at all. Good for him for being a good sport about the situation and not getting crazy and demanding the video be taken down and never being spoken of again. Most times when there's a teleprompter problem, it has something to do with the machine malfunctioning and repeating words or not putting them up correctly... not exactly floating across the camera view. That may be a first.

[H/T: NESW Sports]

This is just the most laughable picture and video I've ever seen.  It should be no surprise that it comes from First Take.  I mean come on, there's an angelic white haze around Tim Tebow like he's from the cast of Touched By An Angel!  He's not dead!  Could there be a more awkward picture to symbolize Skip Bayless and his love for Tim Tebow than that picture above?  Of course not, but that's the point.

Sad piano music plays out Skip Bayless' uncomfortable, sickening, ratings-driven obsession with Tim Tebow, presumably until John Elway drafts a quarterback in April or he has another terrible training camp in July.  This is the official end of TebowMania... at least until the next NFL season.  

HALLELUJAH!  HALLELUJAH!

So what does Skip Bayless do next?  He fades back into oblivion where he belongs.  He has no credibility whatsoever, Skip is just an obnoxiously loud sycophant and demagogue who rode the coattails of Tim Tebow as long as they would carry him.  I'm sure Skip Bayless will try to seamlessly transition into another gimmick that will seek to create the buzz that TebowMania did, but will fail.  Will any of those record number of viewers stick around to watch Stephen A. Smith and Skip Bayless talk about normal things?  Of course not!  Skip has now pigeonholed himself as "that guy that loves Tim Tebow" and won't be able to escape that moniker for the rest of time, fancy video goodbye or not.  He's now a typecasted character actor, much like someone from the cast of The Sopranos.  If you expect Skip Bayless to be relevant on non-Tebow subjects, you might as well expect Paulie Walnuts to start hosting after school specials.

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Ratings for the NFL Divisional playoffs are in, and like last week's Wild Card games, some interesting trends have emerged.

The Packers-Giants game drew the highest amount of viewers EVER for a Divisional game, with 45.1 million viewers and a 25.3 rating, the highest rating since 1997 (Cowboys vs....Panthers? Yes, Panthers). The second highest amount of viewers for a game was not in fact Tim Tebow's Broncos against Tom Brady's Patriots, but the thrilling Niners-Saints game from Saturday afternoon with 35.6 million viewers. While the Broncos-Patriots game was third of the four games in total viewers, both Saturday games were the highest rated divisional games in their timeslots in history. Bringing up the rear in the playoff games was the Ravens-Texans game, with 31 million viewers.

What does all of this actually tell us, though? The fact that the heavily hyped Tebow-Brady showdown, which was a stinker of a game, finished third out of the four games in the ratings shows that fans care more about the actual on-field product as opposed to the hype behind it. A lot of fans could have tuned in at the beginning of the game, saw it begin to get out of hand, and tuned out. I know that's what I did. Meanwhile, the Saints-Niners game with its crazy finish drew in more viewers late as Twitter exploded with reactions to the multiple lead changes in the fourth quarter.

But the big story is the record-breaking ratings for the 15-1 Packers versus the Giants, who played their way into the playoffs on the final week and put on a minimally entertaining game in the Wild Card round against the Falcons. Because of the story of the Packers trying to repeat, and the size of the New York media market, more eyeballs were drawn to that game than there probably should have. So maybe there is something to the story behind the game... but only when on-field performance warrants it. While the Patriots-Broncos game was a blowout at halftime, the Packers and Giants game was tight, and the lure of the upset was alive and well the entire time. Even if it's a blowout, you don't turn off an upset. This is what happened in this game...

That picture pretty much sums up my feelings about how the Divisional Playoffs went with Drew Brees and the Saints knocked out by the Niners after one of the great all-time playoff games.  Maybe Drew can take the time to try his hand at television in the meantime if the opportunity arises as we suggested yesterday.  Alas, the Playoffs go on with Championship Sunday just five days away.  The AFC game goes first from New England followed by the NFC game in San Francisco.  Also note the interesting Pro Bowl announcing team NBC has lined up.  Dan Hicks joins Mike Mayock and Doug Flutie on play by play instead of Tom Hammond from Hawaii.  At least Brees and Rodgers can have their shootout there.

NFL Conference Finals

Sunday, January 22

AFC Championship Game
Baltimore Ravens @ New England Patriots CBS 3PM - Jim Nantz, Phil Simms, Steve Tasker

NFC Championship Game
New York Giants @ San Francisco 49ers FOX 6:30PM - Joe Buck, Troy Aikman, Pam Oliver, Chris Myers

NFL Pro Bowl

Sunday January 29 - Aloha Stadium, Hawaii

AFC vs. NFC NBC 7PM - Dan Hicks, Mike Mayock, Doug Flutie

AFC Champion vs. NFC Champion NBC 6:30PM - Al Michaels, Cris Collinsworth, Michele Tafoya

H/T Sammy!

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Early polling numbers were released yesterday in the much talked about Republican primary for the open US Senate seat in Texas. The Houston Chronicle had the poll results that include AA legend Craig James... and James' numbers so far aren't exactly awe-inspiring. In fact, they're bad. Really bad. The current leader, Texas state Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst, leads the polling at 36%. Former Texas Solicitor General Ted Cruz is in second at 18%. So, where's James?

Craig James is at... 4% support.

That's right, 4%. This is horrendously, stupidly low. Looking at some of the other demographics in the race, James has 30% name ID, which seems low for a guy that was employed by the largest sports entertainment company in the world as an analyst for a sport (college football) that is revered by his home state. That doesn't even account for his playing days at SMU. But then again, SMU fans aren't exactly huge fans of James; he's at 23% positive, and 29% negative among SMU grads.  The Chronicle report sums it up nicely:

"James, who formally launched his campaign last week, draws 4 percent support. The former SMU Mustang and New England Patriot running back is struggling to overcome two liabilities: he’s largely unknown and he’s unpopular among those who know him."

As for Texas Tech grads, where James' son Adam attended and James famously got former coach Mike Leach fired, he's got a 14% positive reaction and a 26% negative reaction. I actually expected the negative rating to be much higher.

On the bright side, in addition to Dewhurst, Cruz, Tom Leppert (former Dallas mayor with 7% support), and James, there are four other candidates for the Republican nomination, all of whom fall behind James. I feel very badly for those four people.

H/T Houston Chronicle

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Shaq has already provided plenty of legitimate laughs in his short tenure on Inside the NBA.  And we're not talking about the fake laughter one sees on any run of the mill NFL pregame show (except for NBC's Football Night in America it seems), we're talking about moments that are actually funny!  Not that Frank Caliendo trainwreck kind of funny, or NFL Today forced kind of awkward funny, or Michael Irvin obnoxious... well, you get the point.  Even though Shaq is great on television and entertaining in his own right, some of his most notable moments so far have centered on himscrewing up basic facts and envoking laughter on the studio set.

First, there was Shaq having a bit of trouble with his percentages when breaking down free throw shooting after Dwight Howard's record performance last Thursday.  Surprisingly, 18 divided by 39 will never be greater than 50%, not even if the Big Aristotle says so... 

And then last night, Shaq was trying to compliment Minnesota's rookie point guard Ricky Rubio by calling him "the Italian Pete Maravich."  One problem.  Ricky Rubio is from Spain, not Italy.  Yes, they share the same continent and the same base of Romance language, but still definitely not the same country.  You think Spain would be caught dead with the full cast of Jersey Shore inside its borders?  Thankfully, Ernie Johnson, Charles Barkley, and Kenny Smith were quick to pounce...

And these clips are what make Inside the NBA superior to other studio shows.  When someone does make a gaffe or a screwup on the set, the other guys on set destroy that person immediately.  There's a natural sense of humor and fraternity on the Inside set that every other studio show desperately tries to create.  If Jon Barry or Jalen Rose were to say this on ESPN, I'm not sure anyone would even be awake enough to notice.

(via Sportress of Blogitude, video: SportsGrid) 

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Last Thursday at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, eventgoers were privy to an interesting event courtesy of ESPN: boxing. The Worldwide Leader put on a Friday Night Fights card at the expo to promote ESPN 3D, which had a busy last week at the event. In addition to the FNF card, attendees saw the live BCS National Title Game in 3D, as well as a live segment of SportsNation. If you're a sports fan, there is no better time than now to own a 3D TV.

But here's the main issue with ESPN's promotion of the technology: right now on cable systems, it's pretty much limited to sports, and only sports. On my Comcast package, there are two 3D channels: ESPN, and Xfinity 3D, which is a jumble of programs that appear to be mainly from HDNet. The content for Xfinity 3D include low-level (IE, non-UFC) MMA, kickboxing, pool, and various small release iMAX movies. It's not as if 3D TV is mainstream, with dozens of channels in the style like high definition channels today.

3D TVs are pricier than HDTVs, with a cost usually 50% more than an HDTV as the LA Times reports. With 3D DVDs also not in existance yet, why would someone want to buy a TV with a technology that's still rather primitive and not widely adopted? If you buy a 3D TV, you're pretty much paying the extra money to watch certain events on ESPN... and that's all.

Furthermore, why is ESPN so insistant on promoting the technology so heavily? I know they're at the top of the sports food chain, but it seems like a colossal waste of money to broadcast over 180 events in 3D when they're literally the only kid on the block and that block is ridiculously small.

The technology may be fantastic, but ESPN is going a little too deep into this right now. ESPN has built an empire on taking risks and successfully pushing the envelope, but is a heavy investment in 3D really one of those examples? It has the feel of the ESPN Mobile experiment that ultimately failed. I'm personally in the market for a new TV right now, and a 3D TV has never even crossed my mind, due in part to the price point and the fact that I'd be paying a lot more for a feature that I'd rarely be using. This just seems like an unnecessary investment for ESPN at this point in time.

[h/t: LA Times]

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