ESPN is diving head-first into yet another new area of programming.  Defending Pammy champion Chris Spielman will be the host of "Rise Up," a series that will focus on high schools in need being given new athletic facilities.  In addition, ESPN is teaming up with country megastar Kenny Chesney for an original theme song for the series.  Here are some details from Hollywood Reporter...

Hosted by ESPN college football analyst Chris Spielman and DIY television personality Deanne Bell (PBS’ Design Squad), Rise Up gives needy high schools’ athletic facilities a makeover. The franchise bowed with a backdoor pilot last fall at New Orleans’ McMain Secondary High School. ESPN is currently in production on new installments in Boston, Seattle, Chicago and Wellston, Ohio, while executives hope to expand the series to six yearly installments in 2012.

Rise Up comes at a time when the recession has sapped funding for public education making sports and extracurricular activities particularly vulnerable. ESPN enlists local businesses to donate materials and man-hours so that the renovation project is a community effort. Each hour is bookended by the surprise announcement that the school has been chosen and the final reveal of the shiny new athletic facilities.

It may sound a little sappy, but this is a great idea.  I dig more of Kenny's island stuff, but as long as he produces something more like "I Go Back" and less like "Boys of Fall" it should be decent (there's the country music analysis you've all been desperately waiting for at AA...).  ESPN usually hasn't succeeded when they've strayed too far from the reservation in terms of televising sports, but "Rise Up" may be different.  Chris Spielman may seem like a random choice, but this could be a great move for him.  Spielman has had to battle adversity in his own life, losing his NFL career to a neck injury and tragically losing his wife Stefanie to breast cancer and can definitely fill a motivating/inspirational role for the series.  (The Stefanie Spielman Fund has raised over 8.5 million dollars for breast cancer research, by the way.)  Also, this won't be Chris Spielman's first hosting gig as he hosted an ESPNU reality series in 2006, Summer House... which I honestly never knew existed before yesterday.  

As for the new series, ESPN can draw in new viewers that would rather watch Extreme Makeover than NFL Live and wouldn't normally tune in to ESPN.  I can't imagine the numbers for this series will be huge, but it can easily find a viewing niche.  At the very least, a few high schools will get some much needed help.  There are so many schools in need around the country and good on ESPN for being proactive in involving communities to help these schools.  Hopefully, the program inspires other communities to do the same with their local school's athletic facilities.  The series debuts September 13th.

**Update: Sorry for the site issues today, but we had some hardcore problems with our server.  Everything seems to be back up and running and we've moved the semifinals back to the top of AA.  There is still time to vote in both matchups as voting will end for the Final Four at midnight and voting for the JMMT Final will run from Wednesday AM till Friday night at midnight.**

We are down to the Final Four of the Joe Morgan Memorial Tournament!  You can check the bracket and the Elite 8 results here.  We have both semifinal matchups here for you to vote on - Chris Berman vs Craig James AND Colin Cowherd vs Joe Buck.  Feel free to vote early and often until the poll closes sometime Wednesday.  Then, we'll move right into the Final Wednesday and voting will close Friday night at Midnight.  Voting on both polls is after the jump...

Yesterday, our long national nightmare ended... no, Skip Bayless and Rob Parker weren't shipped to ESPN UK to argue about cricket, the NFL Lockout is over!  The lockout was getting scary close to affecting the NFL regular season, but the only lost game was the Hall of Fame Game in Canton (spare a thought for those fine folks).  We also have the excitement and unpredictability of the months long offsesason boiled down to a speedy trip through the buffet line for Rex Ryan.  The networks themselves are of course rejoicing as well.  NBC has a short and sweet ad looking forward to the Saints/Packers Thursday night opener (Who Dat!).  ESPN took the route of hiring the evolution of dance fella to take on some of the more famous TD dances of all-time in the video below.  It immediately drew an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty from the league office...



Seriously though, I'm thankful the NFL will be playing football this Fall.  In fact, I even made a list of 17 things (for 17 weeks) that would normally be annoying during the NFL season that will actually be music to my ears...

1) Fake laughter on NFL studio shows
2) Chris Berman's nicknames
3) Frank Caliendo
4) Stuart Scott, Matt Millen, and Steve Young on Monday nights
5) "This guy"
6) Anything Shannon Sharpe says
7) Dick Stockton forgetting which game he's announcing
8) The Galloping Gobbler
9) Joe Buck trying to be funny
10) Thom Brennaman's monotone voice
11) Commercials during replay challenges
12) The media treating Rex Ryan's predictions as news
13) Colin Cowherd's irrational love for Mark Sanchez
14) Did I mention Frank Caliendo?
15) "Hello, friends"
16) Trent Dilfer raising his voice when he wants to sound smarter
17) Brett Favre rumors

On second thought, those will all still be annoying as hell, but I can't imagine my life as a sports fan without them.  By the way, did you hear Favre's going to Philly...

 

Wow, two soccer articles in one day here at AA?  It really must be the middle of the dog days of summer.  Anyways, the clip you're about to see comes from one of the many soccer friendlies (exhibitions) from around the country featuring Manchester City from the EPL against the LA Galaxy from MLS.  These Summer of Soccer friendlies are a great way to expose American fans to the best players in the world while serving as a tune-up to the upcoming EPL season.

Apparently though, someone forgot to tell Man City striker Mario Balotelli to treat the friendly very seriously.  In the first half, Balotelli tried a ludicrous attempt at a spinning backheel goal (perhaps inspired by this) instead of putting away an easy finish.  Naturally, the attempted trick shot missed the target and led to teammate Edin Dzeko undoubtedly dreaming of strangling the young striker on the pitch.

Immediately, the troubled Balotelli (his checkered off-field history makes a young Randy Moss seem mature) was substituted by his manager, Roberto Mancini.  And while the "row" (British for argument, apparently) between player and manager is consuming the British press, ESPN announcers Glenn Davis and former MLS MVP Taylor Twellman weren't shy about ripping Not So Super Mario on the spot...

Twellman: "Are you kidding me?"

Davis: "Good on Roberto Mancin!"

It's rare to hear announcers take sides on such a public spat between a player and coach.  In fact, it used to be fairly rare to hear announcers criticize players so forcefully at all.  An example of an announcer rightly calling out a player happened in this year's NBA Playoffs when Mike Tirico lampooned Andrew Bynum's cheap shot against JJ Barea.

Kudos to Davis and Twellman for bringing it strong and letting their opinions be known immediately on such a high-profile incident.  Perhaps a trend is developing where announcers aren't as afraid to be too critical of the players they're covering.  Even though it was only an exhibition, Balotelli does come off looking foolish and childish, even if the Guardian (an excellent UK soccer source) just wants us all to lighten up a little bit.  Maybe next time Balotelli can try a Scorpion Kick while he's at it.

[EPL Talk]

Monday July 25

Pittsburgh Pirates @ Atlanta Braves (ESPN 7PM) Sean McDonough, Aaron Boone, Rick Sutcliffe

 

Tuesday July 26

San Francisco Giants @ Philadelphia Phillies (MLBN 7PM) Local Broadcast [Alt: Seattle @ NY Yankees]
Chicago Cubs @ Milwaukee Brewers (WGNA 8PM) Len Kasper, Bob Brenly

 

Wednesday July 27

San Francisco Giants @ Philadelphia Phillies (ESPN 7PM) Dave O'Brien, Nomar Garciaparra, Pedro Gomez

 

Thursday July 28

New York Mets @ Cincinnati Reds (MLBN 12:30PM) Local Broadcast [Alt: Florida @ Washington]
Chicago Cubs @ Milwaukee Brewers (WGNA 2PM) Len Kasper, Bob Brenly
San Francisco Giants @ Philadelphia Phillies (MLBN 7PM) TBA [Alt: Pittsburgh @ Atlanta]

 

Friday July 29

Boston Red Sox @ Chicago White Sox (MLBN 8PM) Local Broadcast [Alt: San Francisco @ Cincinnati - 7PM]
Chicago Cubs @ St. Louis Cardinals (WGNA 8PM) Len Kasper, Bob Brenly

 

Saturday July 30

Chicago Cubs @ St. Louis Cardinals (FOX 4PM) Joe Buck, Tim McCarver
Tampa Bay Rays @ Seattle Mariners (FOX 4PM) Kenny Albert, Mark Grace
Los Angeles Angels @ Detroit Tigers (FOX 4PM) Dick Stockton, Jose Mota
San Francisco Giants @ Cincinnati Reds (MLBN 7PM) Local Broadcast [Alt: Baltimore @ NY Yankees - DH Gm 2]
Boston Red Sox @ Chicago White Sox (WGNA 7PM) Ken Harrelson, Steve Stone

 

Sunday July 31

Boston Red Sox @ Chicago White Sox (TBS 2PM) Ernie Johnson, Dennis Eckersley
Chicago Cubs @ St. Louis Cardinals (ESPN 8PM) Dan Shulman, Orel Hershiser, Bobby Valentine

H/T Sammy! 

Allow me to make a confession... I am a bit of an MLS fan.  I know, I know, it's not world class soccer by any means, but I try to support the local team (Columbus Crew) and catch a few games throughout the season.  It's not too often though that we receive tweets or e-mails about announcing for MLS games at AA though.  MLS isn't exactly on the national radar, no matter how many times an MLS team loses 5-0 to one of the top European clubs.  However, @MayerWeisel sent us this tweet about the Rapids/Revolution game in Colorado on the weekend, and I just had to check it out...


Chris Marlowe is the play by play man of the Denver Nuggets, but you probably know him better as the voice of NBC's Olympic coverage of beach volleyball.  I have no idea how many soccer games Marlowe has announced in his career, but I'm guessing it's not very many as he had to check with his analyst for what a red card meant.  A tip for any aspiring announcers out there - you should probably know the rules of the sport you are broadcasting.  SBN blog Burgundy Wave breaks down the embarrassment of Altitude's minor league coverage of the Colorado Rapids expertly here.  This is what they had to say about Marlowe's performance this weekend...

...last night we saw a taste of Chris Marlowe, Nuggets play-by-play man and, well, this might have been the worst one yet. The worst flub on the night was when Chris accidentally let it slip that he didn't know whether or not Chris Tierney's red card meant an ejection, leading to quite a bit of ribbing for the guy on twitter. (Mostly from @Soccerinsider) He also didn't seem to realize that a referee pointing to the spot indicated a Penalty Kick as after both PK's he spent a good couple of minutes trying to figure out if there would indeed be a penalty kick. These were just the biggest problems among a whole plethora.  An embarrassment to the Rapids, their fanbase, and Altitude as a whole.

Watch as New England's Chris Tierney fouls Colorado's Sanna Nyassi from behind in the box drawing a red card, creating a moment of announcing brilliance...

"So the red card's an ejection, correct?" - Chris Marlowe

Every time I think soccer is making the next step in this country, the play by play man for the defending MLS champions doesn't know what a red card means.  Sigh.
 

The Joe Morgan Memorial Tournament is into its final week!  Our field of 32 hopefuls for Joe Morgan's spot on Mount Rushmore and immortalization in Awful Announcing lore is now down to the Final Four.  If you'd like to see how the entire tournament has shaken down, you can check Round 1 and Round 2 results at the links.  Here's the results of last week's Elite 8 matchups...

1) Chris Berman defeated Michael Irvin  58.90% - 41.10%
2) Craig James defeated Stephen A. Smith  60.76% - 39.24%
3) Colin Cowherd defeated Skip Bayless  65.43% - 34.57%
4) Joe Buck defeated Jim Gray  56.34% - 45.66%

Our semifinals will go live on Monday in one post so you can vote on both matchups together.  Now that we're down to the nitty gritty of the competition, voting will run on both semis all the way through Wednesday.  Then, we will see the Final begin and voting will go all the way through Friday, where our newest face on AA will be revealed next weekend.  Here's the bracket and the semifinal matchups with my fancy word processing skills.  It's Chris Berman vs Craig James and Colin Cowherd vs Joe Buck in the Final Four.

We have three men from ESPN (Berman, James, Cowherd) and one from Fox (Buck).  An ESPN victory would mean 3 out of the 4 faces on Mount Rushmore are from the "leader" (Ward, Vitale) while a Buck win would see him join booth partner Tim McCarver and become the second Fox personality on Mount Rushmore.  These are two titanic struggles of awfulness and they truly could go either way.  Whoever ascends to the top of Mount Rushmore, it will be well and truly earned.  See you for the semis!
 

A couple weeks ago, I blogged about how it was looking bleak that HBO would be able to procure an agreement to do another season of Hard Knocks. Today we were greeted with this ominous tweet from Peter King.

While not yet confirmed by HBO, it's looking like they threw up the white flag as they stared down a litanny of issues prohibiting production of another season of the show. No new CBA, no team signed on to do the show, and major logistical issues means football fans will be without one of the most high quality sports programs on television. 

I think most football fans could stomach the loss of the HOF game but Hard Knocks? That hurts. 

With labor peace on the horizon and no confirmation from HBO, I am still holding out a glimmer of hope that an NFL owner picks up the phone today and calls HBO begging to be featured. If the Bengals made the playoffs on their one season being featured, maybe other perennial losers will take heed and embrace the accountability of being in the spotlight. 

First Mad Men and now Hard Knocks? You suits are killing me.

We're going to try a little something new here. While "Real Tweets From Real People" should be familiar to you, we've put it together this time using Storify, which makes it easier for us and might be a little easier for you to read. Feel free to leave feedback on the change in the comments.

Without further ado, after the jump are some real tweets from real people on Dick Stockton, Thom Brennaman, and Eric Karros, the three announcers who received the most "love" on the Twitters during today's MLB on FOX afternoon games.

A "Sweet" 16 "loss" in the Joe Morgan Memorial Tournament was not enough to deter John Sterling from continuing his proud tradition of being awful. When a Yankees fan sent lyrics that they altered from the Sammy Davis song, "Candy man," Sterling deemed it necessary to sing them during the broadcast. In my opinion, this is truly one of ThEeEeEeee worst things you'll hear an announcer do during this entire baseball season. But, that's just John Sterling being John Sterling. He even almost pulls off something that I didn't think was possible, making me dislike Curtis Granderson. If you aren't a Yankees fan, and for whatever reason you subject yourself to one of his broadcasts I can almost guarantee there will be a moment during the game when you debate if stabbing yourself in the brain with a q-tip would be a better use of your time. The Yankees end up winning an instant classic, 17-7 over the A's. In my opinion, the A's weren't the biggest losers of the night. Instead, we were the biggest losers, we were.