It's summer! Time moves slow, kids roam the street freely, and the blistering heat of getting into a parked car makes you feel pity on the inanimate objects already inside. There's also only one sport being played: baseball.
That's a problem for ESPN, who at this point basically have two shows (Sports Center and Baseball Tonight) covering one topic. So they needed a filler - and what do they create - a 32 person, full bracket, tournament style vote to determine "Who's Now"!
What does it mean to be now? (more or less transcribed from my memory) It's the athelete who's at the top of their sport, but also has juice (not to be confused with "Jews", which I thought I heard Scott Van Pelt say - in which case the winner would have to be Kevin Youkilis). To be "now" you have to be in the public eye, have hella endorsements, and date a lot of bangin' celebrities or other athletes.
A star-studded panel of Stu Scott, Kirk Herbstreit, Keyshawn Johnson, and Michael Wilbon then sit around and try to form cohesive arguments about popularity, a segment that this article by Devin Gordon likens to "chewing Styrofoam" (I highly suggest reading this article since I stole most of my material, and the photo, from it). Then the public votes on who is more nowier and that athlete advances (something that could be done with ZERO television coverage). Not to mention whenever a real athlete goes up against a filler/nobody athlete like a surfer/skier/snowboarder/skater/etc, the only argument the panel makes for the nobody are the girls he's dated.
Here's an accurate/humorous comparison from firejoemorgan.com, via an emailer:
"I have an idea for what to do after "Who's Now?" is over. It's called "what time is it?" A panel of ESPN experts would sit around and argue what time it was. They would never agree because the time would always be changing. People could vote online and it would all depend on when they voted.Maybe we should just make Sports Center 45 minutes.
At the end you would have some idea of what time it was."
1 comment:
Love the article. I'd also like to add that SportsCenter claims "Who's Now" is based on athletes who create as much "buzz" off the field as they do on it. With that in mind, here is the list of athletes who SHOULD BE "Now":
Michael Vick
Randy Moss
Curt Schilling
Terrell Owens
Ron Artest
Lindsey Lohan (if drunk driving becomes a sport)
Barry Bonds
Garry Sheffield
Floyd Landis (if Biking becomes a sport)
Pacman Jones
The Cincinnati Bengals
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