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My apologies to the board re: Tribune article on Gameday situation

Bucklion

Throwback
Staff member
Former Premier League Champ
The article
ESPN getting cold shoulder in Columbus




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By Teddy Greenstein
Tribune college football reporter

November 17, 2004

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- The hot topic on Columbus sports radio Tuesday was not Maurice Clarett, the Michigan game or scorned basketball coach Jim O'Brien.

The talk centered on what Ohio State officials consider a dirty four-letter word: ESPN.

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The afternoon host of WBNS AM-1460 posed this question to his listeners: "Is ESPN trying to sell magazines or does it have an agenda against Ohio State?"

Needless to say, no one called in to say that ESPN simply was practicing good journalism.

The Ohio State-ESPN feud erupted last week after ESPN The Magazine's nine-page report outlined Clarett's claims about booster money, bogus jobs and academic fraud.

ESPN.com also ran a story examining an NCAA investigation that occurred while Ohio State coach Jim Tressel was the boss at Youngstown State.

"I do not know their agenda or their motivation," Ohio State athletic director Andy Geiger said of ESPN Tuesday. "We're all a little mystified."

Mark Shapiro, ESPN vice president for programming and production, said there's no reason to be confused.

"Look, our agenda hasn't changed in 25 years," he said. "We don't just cover the games.

"We've been pursuing the Clarett story since the day he decided to leave Ohio State. . . . We made multiple efforts to get comments from [Ohio State officials] for the story."

By Tuesday morning, a rumor was circulating Ohio State had rejected ESPN's request to send its "GameDay" crew to Columbus for Saturday's Michigan-Ohio State game. The rumor turned out to be false.

Both sides acknowledge that weeks ago, an ESPN official called Ohio State to say that a trip to Columbus was possible.

But ESPN decided the bigger story was in Salt Lake City, where fifth-ranked Utah needs to beat Brigham Young to become the first team from a non-BCS conference to play in a BCS game.

In any case Geiger said ESPN would not have been welcomed in Columbus.

"Given some of the emotion around ESPN in this community and the required security . . . we probably would have asked them to go someplace else," he said. "Our welcome mat is perhaps not as thick as it once was."

Geiger apparently made his position clear to Dave Brown, who coordinates ESPN's college football scheduling.

"Clearly they were trying to agitate us," Shapiro said. "There's no reason for that."


Copyright © 2004, The Chicago Tribune

I e-mailed Teddy and asked his source stating ESPiN Lame Day really was not comming.
Workin' Gal noted that she was to work for Game Day at OSU all along and on Monday they stated there was a change in plans.
Sure wish her message wasn't eliminated because if she didn't mind I was going to note the little discrepency (what we are getting used to from ESPiN) to Teddy.
 
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But ESPN decided the bigger story was in Salt Lake City, where fifth-ranked Utah needs to beat Brigham Young to become the first team from a non-BCS conference to play in a BCS game.

In any case Geiger said ESPN would not have been welcomed in Columbus.

"Given some of the emotion around ESPN in this community and the required security . . . we probably would have asked them to go someplace else," he said. "Our welcome mat is perhaps not as thick as it once was."

Geiger apparently made his position clear to Dave Brown, who coordinates ESPN's college football scheduling.

"Clearly they were trying to agitate us," Shapiro said. "There's no reason for that."


Oh yeah! Right Shapiro. Utah and BYU, now there's a rivalry that will pull in a national audience and it really is important to be right on the scene! Yep! Agitate you? Do you really think the cost of this stupid challenge has really begun to sink in? As you TV guys so love to say, stay tuned. A whole week without ESPN. Damn, that feels great!
 
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We've been pursuing the Clarett story since the day he decided to leave Ohio State
Another ESPN inaccuracy.

They've been pursuing/creating the 'Clarett story' since the Ragazine ran the crappy "One and Done?" article in the middle of the 2002 season.

Assclowns.
 
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Yes, I take full responsibility. The HTML Gods were not with me on my cut-and-paste of the article, and it resulted in a fatal error. Again, thanks to Clarity and 21 for their help...and my apologies to those who posted in it.
 
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