ON THE DL

Poor Colt McCoy, SB Nation’s Brent Brookhouse on Dana White and UFC, Gil’s Photo Conspiracy, Leno’s Failure & Obama v. Lost

Snow. Football. MMA. TV.

Brent Brookhouse from BloodyElbow.com and MMA editor at SB Nation drops by to talk about Dana White and the latest scream-at-a-media-member video that came out last week. But first...

Nick and I talk about the BCS title game, which is to say, we talk about how bad we feel for Colt McCoy. Look, would Alabama have won the game anyway? Honestly, who knows. But if McCoy becomes more like Chris Simms (or Major Applewhite even) than Vince Young, THIS could be his legacy - a dead arm in the biggest game of his life. It’s a shame, really.

And what do the AP voters think about Boise State? Well, not that much, if you go by the voting. Boise finished THIRD, behind Alabama (congrats by the way), Texas and Florida. So much for a split national title. Which further illustrates that after all our bitching and complaining, the BCS wins. They got good ratings for three of the five games – the TCU/Boise game was low and certainly nobody was watching the Orange Bowl – the stadiums were packed and the team most would have picked to win the title...did. Pat yourselves on the back, BCS, for a job well orchestrated.

And Now For a Sport We Know Nothing About:

Rather than the two of us ranting about Dana White’s latest video where he MFs on and on about how Sherdog should be promoting his fight and

not questioning his assertion that MMA will be the biggest sport in the world in ten years, we thought it’d make sense to bring in someone who covers the sport a wee bit more closely.

Brent Brookhouse compiled a post for SB Nation of internet writers who have everything from strong to zero interest in MMA and specifically UFC to ask them what we thought about Dana White’s latest rant and to ask if he’s the guy to get the sport fully into the mainstream.

We discuss Brent’s thoughts on that question, and wonder if maybe White, specifically with UFC, doesn’t want anymore crossover appeal. Perhaps these videos are sending a message more to his constituents than the media, in that he’s happy with the crowd of fans who think being a bully is cool, or funny. Has White looked at NASCAR and NHL with their expansion, and how spreading your sport too thin brings in fair-weather fans at the risk of alienating the core, and decided to go the other way? Is White catering to his core and in doing so, purposely alienating new casual fans?

And how much like Vince McMahon is White? Other commissioners run their leagues and let the players be the face. White is clearly the face of UFC. We discuss if that’s the best business model when he’s proven to not be all that likeable at times. And speaking of business models, can UFC become a much bigger brand with so much based on PPV buys? One can make the case that boxing has become less and less relevant because few fights are on free TV anymore. That said, PPVs do bring in millions and millions of dollars. So how much is one over-the-air TV viewer worth when compared to a PPV buy?

Brent and I do talk about some of the fighters, namely Brock Lesnar (and Bobby Lashley) and how fighters coming from WWE/wrestilng look at UFC as a step up to real fighting, yet guys like Hershel Walker (and Jose Canseco) look at it as a last-ditch way to hang on. Is MMA still in a weird purgatory realm of sports?

Any why can’t I have a site that starts with Bloody? Bloody Microphone just doesn’t have the same ring as Elbow.

Inside the Press Box:

Nick and I discuss the report in the Washington Post that the now infamous photo of Gilbert Arenas giving his gun salute disappeared from the Getty Images servers after it was originally posted, per the NBA’s request. From the Post:

Bridget Russel, Getty's director of corporate communications, said the company asked the NBA to revisit its decision, and the Arenas photo eventually was restored to the archive. She said there is a clear distinction between photos shot by Getty and those it distributes on behalf of other organizations -- from the NBA to The Washington Post -- in which the captions make clear that Getty does not own the copyright.

The picture "was shot by one of the NBA's photographers," Russel said. "Getty Images does not own the rights to this image, we are merely the distributor. We did honor the NBA's request to take down the image. They reconsidered, and the photo was restored live to our site at approximately 3:30 p.m."

So it’s back, but why get rid of it once it’s out there in the first place? It clearly makes the NBA look worse that they tried to cover this up. It’s part of the fabric of the sport. Embrace it. Fix it so it doesn’t happen again, but don’t sweep it under the rug. Then you become baseball.

Culture Pop:

The Leno experiment has failed. Shocker. Reports are he’s going back to 11:30pm for HALF AN HOUR and Conan will start at midnight with Jimmy Fallon at 1am. This is a stupid idea, but so was thinking Leno would do well at 10pm. Let’s hope Comcast hires people who know what they’re doing.

And Nick speaks on behalf of all the Lost fans who might get pushed back a week for the State of the Union. Oh, and could you imagine if they did the speech on an American Idol night and FOX refused to preempt? Fun times in the media these days.

Thanks to Brent and thanks to you.

Friday, January 8, 2010

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