It's the end of a crazy year in Sports and ESPN was/is obviously the leader in the AA clubhouse for number of mentions over the 365 days. I've been through the reasoning before so we won't go back into that, but I did want to bring a few things to light.

The two things I harped on more than any other this year, the Who's Now segment and Monday Night Football, were not only the most annoying things the network put out in the world, but also very very popular.

Monday Night Football is still a joke if you ask me. While it was better than last year it's still a collection of randomness highlighted by a few insights from Ron Jaworski. I'm sure 95% of America wouldn't even think about complaining if Tony Kornheiser was send out to pasture, but I don't see that happening. So the question is if everyone can't stand the program why was it the most watched series on Cable this season?

ESPN’s second season of Monday Night Football was the most-watched series on cable television in 2007, set an all-time viewership record and drew the four biggest cable household audiences and 16 of the top 20 this year. In two seasons on ESPN, Monday Night Football has registered nine of the top 10 all-time biggest household audiences in cable history, led by the Patriots-Ravens telecast earliest this month, which attracted cable’s largest household audience ever.

In a year that most of the games on MNF were not interesting matchups at all it's an amazing feat that they pulled of such high numbers. While those numbers were huge for the network they didn't shock me as much as this...

Who's Now was far and away the top search of 2007 (receiving more than six times as many searches as the second-place top search). As noted in ESPN Ombudsman Le Anne Schreiber's column, there were nearly 5 million votes cast throughout the tournament and more than 370,000 were cast for the final vote between Tiger Woods and LeBron James (Eldrick won with 65% of the votes if you were wondering ... and I know you were).

The most annoying, pointless, irrelevant, and stupid programs ever put on television was the most searched topic on ESPN.com? You have to be kidding me.

There's more to come on this during the AA Year in Review next week, but I wanted to get your thoughts on this.

'Who's Now' a Huge Success for ESPN.com (Fanhouse)

(Other source: ESPN PR)

I held this back for a post to build up excitement. Did it work? Are you excited about ESPN's new idea to get fans involved??? I know you are.....well here it is....

Title Town.

In place of “Who’s Now?,” ESPN next year will roll out something called “Title Town,” where “SportsCenter” will visit up to 25 towns that it considers “Title Towns.” Viewers can vote via polls on ESPN.com and the network will solicit essays from viewers. This type of programming fits in with ESPN’s strategy of tying together ESPN’s TV network and Web site. “We are making a concerted effort to find places where you bring those two things together,” Skipper said. Execs say the Title Town concept has garnered interest from at least two sponsors already (SBD)

Hahahaha that's so stupi......wait. That's ACTUALLY a great idea! Who would have thought that using Sports for one of these ideas would make it sound so good???

How do you think they can mess this one up? My guess is that they'll just reuse the Who's Now set and bring the cast of Who's Your Caddy to comment on the towns.

More importantly.....Why wasn't I invited??? Come on guys, you know it would have been fun.

Well luckily for all of us MDS from Fanhouse and other "credible" sites got to attend, and here's what ESPN gave them in Press Release form (I kid, I kid). You do have to commend them for being so forthright.

- Their Real Sports like show will be entitled "E-60" and some of the members will start blogs.

- They somehow have this conviluted idea that the put Jaws in the booth to make you want to be the 4th member. I have no idea what that means.

- They are not planning for a line of ESPN "The Food" (this was my personal favorite from MDS and I agree it would easily sell).

- Fantasy head Matthew Berry wrote for Married with Children, lets his dogs poop in the office, and is going to be everywhere on ESPN.

- Deadspin is out to get them.

- Jemele Hill does not make as much money as The Big Lead reported.

- Video and Fantasy Sports are its priorities, which are two of the things the company does well...for the most part. That makes sense.

- If the Vick Monday Night Football Fiasco was during the Regular Season they say they wouldn't have covered him as much. I don't believe that for a second.

- They are done with producing original content for awhile. It will end with The Bronx is Burning.

.....and lastly and most importantly......

They admitted Who's Now was a bad idea!

Though the execs at ESPN’s Media Workshop held this week in Bristol did not definitively say it would not come back, they admitted that the segments did not compare well with other, lighter summer fare on ESPN’s news program. For example, Skipper said “Who’s Now?” was not as strong as '06’s “Make-A-Wish” series or '05’s “50 States in 50 Days.” Skipper: “It didn’t work as well. I’m willing to concede that.” ESPN President George Bodenheimer added, “Perhaps we could have executed it differently.” Skipper said ESPN would try similar shows in the future, but only if they are more focused on sports. (Sports Business Daily)

Hallelujah! Great job by MDS of chronicling his trip to The Leader, and maybe next year AA will be invited. I'll only go though if it doesn't conflicted with The U.S. Air Guitar Championships.

MDS in Bristol (Fanhouse)

Who would have ever thought that he could pull of this gargantuan upset?!?!?! No one predicted this! This is Mason-UConn, NC State-Houston, it's....dare I say it?

It's USA-Russia 1980!!! Tiger only got this win because he won the Bridgestone this past weekend right (or as Steve Levy called it on SportsCenter...the Firestone)?

Oh wait....he won with 65% of the vote? And everyone knew he was going to win from the beginning??? Well what about the judges!? One of them had to say it was Lebron? No??? They spent 5 whole minutes talking about nothing?

Well then....apparently they did.

My favorite part of that whole exchange is the very end when Stu says, "Well your votes don't count this round. It's all you the fan." Jalen was probably like..."Damn, well at least I get to stare at E-Money's gams then."

So there you have it. After a month of voting and one upset. Tiger is "Now".....thanks ESPN, we can all rest easy.

Just in case you haven't been paying attention the last month, we've finally come to the exciting conclusion of ESPN's Who's Now brackets. There were twists and turns, a Santa Clara like Tony Parker, upset after upset, and....

Okay, who are we kidding....it's a #1 Seed vs. a #1 Seed in the Finals (Woods-James). There were no surprises (except Erin Andrews' Legs during one of the segments: see above), only one "upset" (Parker over Federer), no one really tuned in to watch the program on Sports Center, and there were more viewers on ESPN.com for Who's Now than any other feature (yes, including Bill Simmons).

Wait...what did I just type? More than any other feature??? That can't be true...

Critics have almost universally hated "Who's Now," but fans have played along with more than 4 million votes, pointed out Glenn Jacobs, senior coordinating producer for SportsCenter. For four weeks, it has been the story with the most traffic on espn.com. TV ratings have not appreciably changed for its time slot, he said.

"There may be a disconnect between those who like it and those who don't like it," Jacobs said Wednesday. "It was a chance for our fans to have some fun. Sports is built on debate. We took that idea and tweaked it. We tried something different."

Damn..it is true. Everyone knew Tiger was going to win and that he'd be going against Bron-Bron, so what was the point? I guess there wasn't one really.....I think this Anonymous comment, from the very first post AA had on the subject, sums the whole thing up the best.

"Captain America could never beat Batman. Batman is NOW!!!!!!!!11111"- Anon

Who's Not Now (Palm Beach Post)
Who's Now?: Yet Another Quirky SportsCenter Feature To Debut Tonight (Awful Announcing)

Man, Greenie sure is trying isn't he?

This is really just an excuse to post another Who's Now video because I'm obsessed with the concept. Well that and I had to show you the fashion choice from each. The Metro Collection from Greenberg, The Wife Beater from Jessica (hot), and....umm? The XXXXL Jordan shirt and a promotional hat for the movie you're...uh, promoting? Good choice Kevin James. Stylish.

Don't really have any time to comment on this but I wanted to get this video up of Mike Greenberg confirming AA's earlier breaking news on the cast of Chuck and Larry voting on Round 2 of Who's Now. Sorry for the picture quality, but the audio is dead on.

Also, Adam Sandler apparently IS involved, so you've got that to look forward to as well!!!

Breaking News: Who's Now Gets Who's Nowier (Awful Announcing)

P.S.- Always, Always! use the "she's not as beautiful as you" line. Or another favorite...."She's just not my type."

AA is going to be off tomorrow. Yeah it sucks, but nothing has happened in the last few days , and none of you read on Fridays anyway.

With that said I wanted to leave you with some breaking news for the weekend. There's going to be yet another awesome ESPN Cross Promotion that'll be coming to a SportsCenter near you. Via Dan Lebatard's Radio Show Thursday Evening comes this joyous nugget.....

Wilbon, Herbstreit, and Keyshawn are being replaced for Round 2 in the Who's Now tournament...any guesses on who'll replace them? You'll never guess so I'll just tell you.

Kevin James (yes!), Mike Greenberg (oh yeah!), and (drumroll)....Jessica Biel!!!


Hell yeah SportsCenter! You did a cross-promotion with Die Hard 4....why not do one with Chuck and Larry? You can also tie it in to your Who's Now crap!!! F'ing Brilliant. There hasn't been a press release yet, but according to AA's associate editor for the week....Lebatard was all over this on his daily radio show.


Someone shoot me now...well let me get a look at Biel, and then off me.

UPDATE: Just linking in the video so you can see JB in all her glory.

Who's Now Round 2: Video

Just so you don't think I'm crazy about this whole Who's Now crap....AA has pulled the video. Don't watch it if you don't want your day ruined....

(In serious voice)..."The thing that's hurting Matt Leinart right now is that it's early in the game."- Herbstreit

Now that's analysis folks!

I had purposely avoided the Who's Now SportsCenter bits up until yesterday. Mainly because I don't get home until after the show is over, but more likely I was just scared what my eyes would see. Well I got home early yesterday evening and took in the hour long show (Who's Now took up about 1/4th of it). Let's just say I'm glad Will Leitch's 24 hour viewing of ESPN didn't include this....I don't think he would have survived.

Last night's episode of Who's Now featured an amazing roundtable of panelists in charge of explaining why Tiger Woods beat Matt Leinart. Stu Scott provided nothing but an introduction of Michael Wilbon, Kirk Herbstreit, and Keyshawn Johnson. The Panel then discussed the pros and cons of each. Tiger just had a baby...he has a new golf tournament in DC...etc, etc. Matt Leinart was then described as winning the Heisman and winning a National Championship. Umm okay....not that I care, but how in the hell does that Make him "NOW"?!?! That was two years ago.

They then discussed the next day's matchup of Dwayne Wade versus Shawn White. Hmm, wonder who's going to win that one??? The thing is so predictable and just plain asinine that I feel dumber for watching it. My favorite part was when Stuart Scott said that Tiger Woods had this "locked and loaded and poised to win." Uh yeah...you think? Why even bother???

I know that this is just the way things are with ESPN these days, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't feel good to vent. I actually talked with a former ESPN SportsCenter employee recently and he conveyed the same thoughts.

ESPN is officially MTV 2.0....After watching that I urge you to never watch the show again and pick up some of the books on Yahoo Sports writer Dan Wetzel's Summer Reading List.