Idiots Write About Sports

NBC Sports Chairman Dick Ebersol — who has been the subject of some playful teasing from yours truly in the past — sat down for an interview with the New York Post and gave me plenty of reason not to squeeze too much of NBC’s Olympic coverage into my busy schedule during the next fortnight or so.

Let’s go to the videotape:

Q: What is success for NBC?

A: Success at the Olympic Games here in Athens is obviously tied up into three things. From the corporate end, it is profit. We already know we are profitable. It is just how much. Two, is what kind of impression it has on the audience in terms of ratings? Particularly the primetime telecasts over 17 nights. And, lastly, a sort of sense that it moved people. That is sometimes a little bit hard to define.

Missing from that list: whether or not the coverage produces compelling, accurate coverage of a worldwide sporting event.

But hey — so long as NBC’s able to turn a profit, I think we all win.

And now the dreaded words: Hack Alert. Right at the start of Caple's latest crime against journalism:

"The 2004 Olympics are the first sporting event I've ever covered that require an all-day security briefing and first-aid course.

"You need to take a grab bag everywhere," the security specialists hired by ESPN told us. "In it, you should have your first-aid kit, your passport, a torch, bottled water, a respirator and enough money to buy a plane ticket home."

A torch and a respirator? What, are some of the Olympic events being held at Yankee Stadium?"

Chalk up an I Hate The Yankees reference. The subject wasn't even baseball and he managed to work in a hack. Unbelievable.

These alerts become all the more useful now that I've pledged to restrict my Page 2 reading to only vaguely competent writers.

I'm looking at the photos coming out of the opening ceremonies. Now I am intrigued. Not that I like these kinds of events, but I'd like to see how NBC handles the bare breasts and penises I'm seeing.

Double Hack Alert. Caple walked the marathon route in Athens. Afterwards, we find the route tragically was not enough to keep him from writing.

I Hate The Yankees:
"Why am I walking 26.2 miles in the brutal midday sun from Marathon to Athens' Panathinaiko Stadium when there are perfectly good buses whizzing by every half hour? Because it is the most famous Marathon course in the world, the route that gave the event its name. Even walking it is like getting a chance to take batting practice in Yankee Stadium, only no one is shouting that I suck.

And, as it turns out, the town of Marathon has certain similarities to the neighborhood around Yankee Stadium as well. It's a small town with a lot of broken pavement, faded paint and very little greenery. The potholes look so old they might be from the battle. There is an abandoned lot directly across from the starting line."

David Wells Is Fat!:
"My tale of the tape: Six ½ liter bottles of water, seven 1/3 liter cans soda, one liter of fruit juice. And I'm still so thirsty I could outdrink David Wells."