Can Someone Explain This ESPN Title Town Business To Me?

Tuesday, May 20, 2008


This Title Town thing has been promoted for awhile now and I still don't understand what it is. Even after reading the press release I'm still confused.

A panel of 33 journalists from ESPN and across the country will pare down the list of nominations for ESPN’s SportsCenter “TitleTown USA” – an interactive and multimedia effort to determine which city, town or municipality will be declared America’s top championship city by fans this summer. The panel features 12 SportsCenter anchors and 21 accomplished media professionals from top daily newspapers and television outlets.

The 2008 SportsCenter summer initiative began Wednesday, April 9, with online nominations by fans at http://proxy.espn.go.com/espn/titletown/index. Fans submitted nearly 2,000 individual nominations before the deadline last Friday. The series’ executive production team will select the top-50 entries for the panel of judges to determine the 23 cities, including Green Bay, Wisc., which will compete for the “Title.”
I know people are voting to figure out which town is the best in the Country and that Sports Center will go to each town, but what I don't understand is....Why? So it's basically a bunch of fans in towns like Green Bay and Durham voting for themselves to be featured on Sports Center??? If it wasn't for Who's Now this would be the biggest waste of time ever. I know there isn't much to do in the Summer once Basketball and Hockey end, and I understand the anchors wanting to leave the studio and the writers gaining exposure, but good lord this seems pointless. I could be completely off base here but I just don't get this at all.

Also, one more random question...didn't they already do this in 2005 when it was called 50 States in 50 Days? In case you care here are the people anchors and columnists involved....

Sportscenter anchors:
John Anderson, John Buccigross, Linda Cohn, Josh Elliott, Neil Everett, Jay Harris, Steve Levy, Brian Kenny, Chris McKendry, Stuart Scott, Scott Van Pelt and Stan Verrett.

Panelists: Wendell Barnhouse (College Football Writer/Columnist, Ft. Worth Star-Telegram), Paola Boivin (Columnist, Arizona Republic), Steve Buckley (Columnist, Boston Herald), Chad Cripe (Writer, Idaho Statesman), Rick Dean (Writer, Topeka Capital-Journal writer), Pat Dooley (Columnist, Gainesville Sun), Rick Gosselin (NFL writer, Dallas Morning News), Dave Hyde (Columnist, South Florida Sun-Sentinel), John Ireland (Sports Anchor, KCAL TV – Los Angeles), Steve Kelley (Columnist, Seattle Times), Gwen Knapp (Columnist, San Francisco Chronicle), Jim Litke (Sports Columnist, Associated Press), Tim May (Writer, Columbus Dispatch), Terrence Moore (Writer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution), Jon Paul Morosi (Writer, Detroit Free-Press), Patrick Saunders (Writer, Denver Post), Kevin Scarbinsky (Columnist, Birmingham News), Peter Schmuck (Columnist, Baltimore Sun), Drew Sharp (Columnist, Detroit Free-Press), Mike Vaccaro (Columnist, New York Post), Jason Wilde (NFL Writer, Wisconsin State-Journal)

Posted by Awful Announcing- at 3:13 PM

15 Comments:

Hey, why is there no Cleveland area representation?

/not funny
//shows self out

Anonymous said...
May 20, 2008, 3:58:00 PM  

Oh man, I can't wait to hear what Linda Cohn's thoughts are on Baton Rouge!!!

GMoney said...
May 20, 2008, 4:02:00 PM  

But which "Titletown" is "Now"?

Anonymous said...
May 20, 2008, 4:10:00 PM  

Oh god...my head is going to explode Anon.

May 20, 2008, 4:19:00 PM  

I didn't know Sportscenter anchors were classified as "journalists."

The Editor said...
May 20, 2008, 4:27:00 PM  

No Bayless? That carpetbagger should be involved in this as he goes from town to town spewing those abortions he calls "opinions" and then heading out once he is revealed as a hump.

Anonymous said...
May 20, 2008, 4:28:00 PM  

If Boston wins, We riot !

May 20, 2008, 4:51:00 PM  

I gave up trying to figure out ESPN and their "Nexts" and "Nows" and "Titletowns" a long time ago. Now I just ignore ESPN's lunacy as best I can.

I'm a much happier person for it.

Big Al said...
May 20, 2008, 7:06:00 PM  

a lot of the finalists are small towns which never gets national TV love, so we could learn some cool things about teams/areas we didn't know about.

Anonymous said...
May 20, 2008, 10:40:00 PM  

People. Relax. It's summer stunt programming. Everyone does it. It sounds a lot like 50 States in 50 Days, and that was well received. I wouldn't say I'm looking forward to it. But it's not going to be as bad as Who's Now.

Anonymous said...
May 20, 2008, 11:11:00 PM  

Any Summer Filler that's not Who's Now? makes me happy, if only because we avoid that piece of shit for another year (until they figure out how to repackage and remake it, which will happen any year now...).

TJ said...
May 21, 2008, 7:17:00 AM  

Scott Fowler in Charlotte, Lennox Rawlings in Winston-Salem, or Caulton Tudor in Raleigh don't rate for this list?

Sam Walker said...
May 21, 2008, 8:13:00 AM  

Like Brian, I am also confused and left with lots of questions. Will there be a bracket? A countdown? Or just a little tour as "50 States in 50 Days" was in 2005?

I remember the "50 States" tour. It was very interesting and was mostly incident-free, except for when George Smith and crew went to Louisiana just before Hurricane Katrina. ESPN aired that state's segment only once because it was felt inappropriate as the hurricane made landfall. That decision was validated by later events.

Also, there were actually 51 stops, with Washington, DC added at the end.

Anonymous said...
May 23, 2008, 1:13:00 PM  

this series should not be put on the air. Green Bay has for a very long time been known as title town and they cannot strip our title away because they want a program that will attract viewers.

packerfan4 said...
Jun 9, 2008, 8:10:00 PM  

Can we all agree upfront to take Buffalo out of the running? Just curious.

Anonymous said...
Jun 10, 2008, 9:43:00 AM  

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