This week, ESPN did Round Two of its layoffs and veteran researcher Howie Schwab became the face of those job cuts. An estimated 400 people will lose their jobs. In addition, ESPN announced that it was suspending operation of the flailing ESPN 3D due to lack of consumer interest. And quietly, two late night programs that had filled timeslots on ESPNews and ESPNU were canceled. 

This was by far the best tweet of Game 4.  Only Metta World Peace could tweet his admiration for Dwyane Wade with an acrostic that spells W.A.D.S. instead of W.A.D.E...

Wade stands for We Are defending Something

— Metta World Peace (@MettaWorldPeace) June 14, 2013

So close!  Seriously though, let's all just thank Metta for not referring to Dwyane Wade by the worst self-appointed nickname slash secret marketing campaign in the history of sports - Way of Wade.  That's still unforgivable and makes me root against Miami more than anything in this year's Finals.

Here's wishing Metta World Peace a Happy Bastille Day, or whatever holiday he's celebrating today.

Above, you see the touching tribute from the Chicago Tribune to the city of Boston the day after the horrific marathon bombings. Erasing any and all rivalries, one city reached out to another to say, “We stand with you.” I was particularly proud of this gesture for two reasons:

1. I live in Chicago

2. I am originally from New Hampshire, which means Boston teams are our teams.

The next week, the Tribune expanded on its generosity by buying lunch for the entire Boston Globe staff. Again, another touching gesture from one city to another.

Well, now that the Blackhawks and Bruins are vying for Lord Stanley, the Tribune has turned its act of kindness into the act of a petty teenager in some sort of misguided attempt at humor or sporting rivalry or something pointless. Behold what wound up in Wednesday’s supplemental edition of the Tribune:

This is one of the crazier sights I've ever seen caught on camera at a golf tournament.  As Carl Pettersen takes his backswing on the 5th hole early Friday morning, his ball is ricocheted away by a wayward shot from the neighboring 2nd hole.  And you thought golf was tough enough when the ball was stationary?  

The odds of this happening at a US Open have to be somewhere around one in a trillion.  Kudos to ESPN's production for catching it on tape.

H/T Liam_Jones15

Stephen A. Smith tweeted the following in back to back tweets the morning after the Miami Heat won Game 4 to tie the NBA Finals with the San Antonio Spurs.  This is the Event Horizon of the Embrace Debate movement...

Folks are getting on my damn nerves. I picked the Spurs in 7 at start! Then you analyze what you see. Whoever goes up 3-2 has got the series

— Stephen A Smith (@stephenasmith) June 14, 2013

How is this difficult to comprehend. Game 5 will not decide this series!

— Stephen A Smith (@stephenasmith) June 14, 2013

So, whoever wins Game 5 "has got the series" but at the same time, Game 5 "will not decide the series."  Crystal clear, isn't it?  Well played Stephen A. Smith, well played.  So this is what ESPN sees in you to have you on air 21 hours out of the day on its family of networks.  Bravo...

Somewhere Bill Simmons weeps.

H/T upinsmoke7886

Grantland Editor in Chief Bill Simmons has always been one to speak his mind, it's one of the many reasons why he's risen to the very top at ESPN.  It's also seen him cross swords with his employer and voice criticisms about his own network that nobody else can raise in public.  The Sports Guy has been suspended from Twitter twice by ESPN - once in 2009 for calling an ESPN Radio affiliate "deceitful scumbags" and again earlier this year for tweeting criticism of the abomination that is First Take.

With his comments in the early morning hours after Game 4 of the NBA Finals, Bill Simmons may be on his way to a trifecta of suspensions (or at least a stern talking to from the HR department)  Simmons objected to SportsCenter editing out a joke of his about Dwyane Wade and managed to take another dig at one of the network's more controversial personalities.  He also sent a cryptic tweet that makes you think it's going to be difficult for him to return to ESPN's NBA studio next year:

The NFL draft has exploded in recent years, both live and on television. And while the league has pretty much maximized the exposure it can give the draft on TV and online, there's one way it can continue to literally expand the annual event's reach.

And that's by taking it on the road.

That's something Roger Goodell and Co. is considering, according to Sports Illustrated's Don Banks: 

All Times Eastern

Australian Rules Football
Richmond Tigers vs. Adelaide Crows -- Fox Soccer Plus, 11:30 p.m.

Boxing
Fight Night, Bethlehem, PA
Heavyweights: Bryant Jennings vs. Andrey Fedosov -- NBC Sports Network, 8 p.m.

Friday Night Fights, West Orange, NJ
Jundy Maraon vs. Juan Carlos Payano -- ESPN2, 9 p.m.

College Baseball
2013 College World Series Press Conference -- ESPNU, noon & 3 p.m.

College Football
College Football Live -- ESPN2, 3:30 p.m.

During last night's Boston Red Sox-Tampa Bay Rays game, Sun Sports announcers DeWayne Staats and Brian Anderson lost a plastic bottle that they thought had gone overboard. However, they found it had stayed on the lip of their broadcast booth and had not fallen into the Tropicana Field crowd. 

So an enterprising Anderson found a fishing net and managed to retrieve it. The results are shown above. The lesson here is that local announcers never work without a net. You never know when you're going to need one. 

[MLB.com]

One thing has to be understood when talking about television ratings.  Ratings are relative.  A good number for one league or network would be a horrible number for another.  Demos are significant.  Who's watching is sometimes more significant than how many are watching.  Moreso though, trends are significant.  For instance, it's noteworthy that NASCAR's ratings have plummeted in recent years even though the racing series still has numbers that MLB would yearn for on a weekly basis.  It's good for the NHL that its numbers are up even though they're light years from the NBA.

Another example of these growing trends is soccer.  Soccer's ratings are still not close to the four major sports on most occasions, but the positive signs are there.  Last night's World Cup Qualifier on ESPN between the USA and Panama was another step in the right direction.  The match was the second highest rated WCQ match or friendly in network history, delivering 1.4 million viewers and a .8 rating.  Those numbers fall just short of the US-Mexico game earlier this qualifying cycle that drew an impressive 2.4 million.  And considering the game was going up against the NBA Finals, it can be considered an even bigger success.

Again, soccer has a loooong way to go before it reaches even NHL level viewership to keep viewership numbers in perspective.  However, if these numbers keep pace, ESPN will see viewership continue to grow throughout World Cup Qualifying and all the way to Brazil for the 2014 World Cup and what should be record viewership for soccer in America.  At a time when ratings are declining for almost every other sport, it's encouraging for fans of the beautiful game to be trending in the right direction.

[ESPN]