“Honey Badger” Cooked At LSU
by Cheval John
It looks like Tyrann Mathieu will not have a chance to return to the LSU football team.
The junior from New Orleans, nicknamed “The Honey Badger,” was kicked off the team last Friday after violating team rules.
He finished fifth in the Heisman Trophy race and was a key element in LSU’s run at the national championship last year.
He returned two punts for touchdowns and forced six fumbles that allowed him to score two more touchdowns as a result.
There was speculation that Mathieu could still take classes at the university and possibly be reinstated to the team in 2013.
But Bo Bahnsen, LSU senior associate athletic director for NCAA compliance told USA Today: “He (Mathieu) is permanently ineligible to play football at LSU.”
Mathieu paid a visits to McNeese State University and Jackson State University since being dismissed.
He would not have to sit out a year since both programs are at the FCS level.
He will hold a press conference later today on where he is going to play.
Not All Ratings Are Good Ratings
by Cheval John
Everyone witnessed history on Tuesday night when the U.S. Women’s Gymnastics team won the gold medal at the 2012 London Olympics.
The gold medal win was their first since 1996 when the “Magnificent Seven” won it at the ’96 Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia.
The only problem is that the event took place three to four hours before NBC aired it in prime time.
Some wonder why they choose to air the event on tape delay when the United Kingdom is five hours ahead of New York.
NBC Sports Chairman Mark Lazarus believes that by showing important events on tape delay, it will draw more viewers than being shown live.
“I think what we’ve proven is that the American viewing public likes the way we tell the story and wants to gather in front of the television with their friends and family-even if they have the ability to watch it live either on television or digitally,” Lazarus said to John Ourand of the Sports Business Journal.
“I inherently trust that decision is the right one and that people want to see these events.”
This is not the first time that they have done this.
In fact, it has been happening for years.
For example, the “Miracle on Ice” that took place at Lake Placid, New York during the 1980 Winter Olympics, was seen by 34.2 million viewers on ABC.
Everyone remembers where they were and what they were doing when Team USA defeated the heavy favorite “U.S.S.R. (now Russia).
However, the event was shown on tape delay as well while television networks around the world showed the game live to their viewing audience.
Those Americans who were either at the game or lived overseas were able to witness history before them while those who lived in the states and watched it on television, saw it about three to four hours after it happened.
To be fair, the announcers of NBC tells the viewers to turn away from the set as they display the results so that those who want to see the competition can enjoy it without knowing the results beforehand.
But, with the internet, people can find out the results of a specific event within minutes, even if they have no intention to because it is advertise as soon as you start using the internet.
It’s true that the ratings are much higher if the events are shown in tape delay.
At the end of the day, they cheat their viewers out of the olympic experience.
Missing Out On History
by Cheval John
When NBC showed the bronze medal game between the Brazilian duo of Julianna/Larissa and China’s duo of Zhang Xi and Xue Chen, I believed that they were going to show the gold medal match between Americans Kerry Walsh-Jennings/ Misty May-Treanor and Jennifer Kessy/April Ross right after that match.
Instead, they showed track and field at 3 p.m., which I didn’t care for at the time and then the men’s water polo match between the USA and Serbia, by which the men’s team got destroyed by Serbia .
Not that I didn’t like track and field, but I wanted to witness history.
I wanted to see if May-Treanor/Walsh would win their third consecutive gold medal at the London Olympics or get defeated by an up and coming duo of Kessy/Ross.
May/Walsh eventually defeated Kessy/Ross by the score of 21-16, 21-16 to claim their third straight Olympic gold.
It was the first time that competitors from the same country were playing for a gold medal since the inception of beach volleyball in the Olympics in 1996 when competitors from Brazil faced off for the coveted gold.
Walsh/May have excelled in tournaments and Olympic competition since they became partners in 2001.
They have been the face of beach volleyball and have grown the sport with their enthusiasm and domination.
Everyone expected them to be in the gold medal game.
However, no one expected Kessy/Ross to be there.
The duo have competed in AVP and FIVA tours since 2007.
They even knocked off the Walsh/May on September 7, 2008 to advance to the final of the AVP tournament in Cincinnati, Ohio.
They earned it the hard way by defeating Brazilian duo and No.1 Julianna/Larissa in three sets to make it to the gold medal match.
But NBC decided to show the game in prime time, which ruined everything and once again cheated the audience out of history.
I was bound to find out the results before it aired one way or another through the internet.
Many people complained that MSN should not have showned the results of the match before the actual event aired.
In reality, they did what they are suppose to do: get the information out there as soon as it happened.
Some even suggested that NBC should have shown the event live and then show it again in replay for those who missed it.
That way, those that missed it, can at least see how they got to that result.
I wonder if the executives of NBC ever thought of that.
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