We start with, well, vuvuzelas. I didn’t want to. Nick just surprised me with it. I honestly don’t have a problem with them. It’s fun to make fun of them, but at some point they just become part of the background. Now if I was there I’m sure I’d hate it. On TV it’s not as off-putting as some.

We talk about the savior of the Big 12, for now. It’s more wondering what the fallout will be. There still has to be fallout, right? Oh, and there was an EARTHQUAKE during a baseball game? This, clearly, far less devastating than in the past.

WORLD CUP:

I was on a conference call with ESPN’s John Skipper yesterday and asked him what the network’s plan is for discussing non-soccer stories with regard to each country in the World Cup. For example, North Korea plays today, so is there any thought of a feature on their political unrest? Perhaps something about the Greek financial crisis (perhaps how that pertains to the soccer team). We’ve been told that ESPN has a lot of stories planned for South Africa, but what about the rest of the world, as, let’s face it, the World Cup is a political event as much as a sporting event.

Skipper’s reply is inside the show, and is very well reasoned and smart. If there’s a story that breaks during the World Cup, they’ll cover it. They will extensively cover South Africa, but unless it pertains to the team on the field, they will probably steer clear of the story.

Having said that, play-by-play man Ian Darke has made several references to the economic status of the countries for matches he is calling, most notably the comment about Paraguay’s poverty rate and the civil and political unrest in Ivory Coast. So there is, somewhere, a balance.

More on this at TSB later today.

TECH TALK:

ESPN and XBOX officially teamed up. Will we even need TV in a few years?

Tags: College Football, John Skipper, World Cup, XBOX