very excellent analysis...
that means catering to the masses, not die hards: puff pieces, superficial analysis that lasts no longer than sixty seconds, attention grabbing sound bites and highlight plays; that is the formula that has worked so well for them in attracting a mass audience
their brain trust immediately saw what kind of legs the Spygate incident had...and the rest is history...of course, the damage to a segment of their viewing demographic, the New England sports area, was weighed and dismissed in favor of over kill.... 30 second innuendo, unnamed "sources","NFL insiders" and contrived "shock" at each new "revelation".
The masses wanted to know the why and how and ESPN jumped in with both feet, guns blazing. Who can forget Schlereth with his diagrams in the background, explaining in detail the inner workings of the Patriot "scheme"....how they took the video, and then rushed the video to a remote viewing room where it was dissected, and then that information was relayed back down to the field giving Belichick advance notice of the next play. I WATCHED this damnable idiot sit there with a straight face and explain HOW this was what was done...and ESPN ran with it until someone from the NE sports media confronted them with the facts that proved Schlereth's "explanation" was pure ,unadulterated bullcrap with ZERO credibility in any real time sense. I mean, any 6th grade physics student could have debunked his horsecrap in a few minutes using simple physics and time study.
So, what did ESPN do??? Well. first, neither they nor Schlereth ever admitted that the segment they ran was preposterous and totally idiotic...no...they simply moved on to ANOTHER way to appeal to the now country wide Spygate audience with tales of "walkthrough against the Rams taped!!!", "cameraman Walsh to reveal all!!" and ten second sound bytes with the Joey Porters of the league declaring "I knew there was something funky going on,man!!!!!"...yeah...what was going on was ESPN's numbers went off the charts with each week's "new details!!!!" furiously building as the Patriots were in the middle of an historic 16-0 run...culminating in the denouement of the 2007 Super Bowl.
It is no wonder that the NFL's numbers were never higher in its history than it was at that particular time. I suspect the Goodell's reticence to end all the nonsense was bolstered when the bean counters showed him the league numbers and how the fanbases were scope locked on him and the handling of this ridiculous tempest in a tea pot. It's an easy business decision to make....who cares about the tempest when you can ride the wind on a category five hurricane...which is exactly what happened...and through it all, ESPN played the Weather Channel Storm Edition.
This is why TODAY, THE biggest get in the business is anything related to the Jets and the Patriots especially in tandem with each other. It's as if ESPN has branded this particular segment of their reporting, sparing no hyperbole, innuendo or hearsay.
