Monday, January 31, 2011  ESPN and the Cult of Personality
Winning isn't everything. That appears to be the belief at ESPN,
where personality trumps success in their programming. Tiger
Woods finished 44th in last week's golf tournament at Torrey
Pines. Not exactly a great result, but apparently not bad enough
to prevent a player who has not won in over a year from getting
more coverage from the world wide leader during the weekend than
the winner, young phenom Bubba Watson, and the second place
finisher Phil Mickelson (a hugely successful golfer in his own
right). Such treatment is par for the course in sports media
these days. Even when Woods is out of contention almost every
shot of his is shown, everything he does on and off the course
is scrutinized and dissected. The casual fan probably couldn't
name another golfer. Tiger's fame is a by-product of the
burgeoning sports media empire dominated by the ESPN family of
networks. Their various channels spend an inordinate amount of
time on only one participant