ESPN to Embed Reporter at Ohio State for Signing Day
Nine years ago, ESPN didn't even cover National Signing Day.
This year, the network will air 10 continuous hours of coverage, embed reporters at 13 different schools and feature 17 on-air player commitments.
It's become a veritable college football holiday.
Live coverage begins with ESPNU's National Signing Day special at 9 a.m. ET and will include live look-ins from SportsCenter, an ESPN simulcast from 3:30-4 p.m. and the wit and insight of former coaches Gene Chizik (Auburn) and Derek Dooley (Tennessee).
Quint Kessenich, part of an ESPN college football broadcast crew with Urban Meyer in 2011 – they did the Akron game together and would have done Michigan had Meyer not pulled out of the broadcast – has been assigned to Ohio State and will report live from a fax machine at the Woody Hayes Athletic Center.
12 other reporters, six of them at SEC schools, will provide similar coverage.
Comments
Who?
"YOLO" = I'm about to do something extremely ignorant/stupid & I need an excuse to do it.
He called the OSU VS. MSU game if you watched it on TV. I like when he calls our games on the sidelines.
Ohio State's band SLAUGHTERED Michigan's band. If this were a football game, it would have been Florida State vs. Savannah State. - SB Nation following OSU vs. UM 2012
he does sideline reporting but i think thats his side gig, hes espns main lacrosse analyst in the press box when they air games in the spring
Oh, ok. Now I remember who he is.
I usually don't pay attention to the sideline reporters unless they're women.
"YOLO" = I'm about to do something extremely ignorant/stupid & I need an excuse to do it.
Apparently they smell what Urbz is cooking... With Josina Anderson embedded at M*ch*g*n, it'll set up a nice storyline for Davis, Chizik and Dooley to analyze in studio: "The recruiting war between Meyer and Hoke..." (Cue ominous music)
Du..dun...duuunnnn....
The world is full of kings & queens who'll blind your eyes & steal your dreams - it's heaven & hell - Ronnie James Dio.
Bell announces at 9am if I remember correctly, so that day is going to start off early.
Here's hoping that Urban told his old colleagues that there'd be big news in Columbus on signing day and suggested they be there
I wish they would leave us alone.
You have to admire how well Meyer understands how the power of the media, if used in the right way, can help him to build his and OSU's brand. It's just downright brilliant how positive the coverage has been as of late, such as the "Hard Knocks" type show from last summer, how he was there at the NC game as an analyst, keeping his face in front of prospective recruits.
Perhaps there is a warm fuzzy post coital glow from his time at ESPN, but I think he has seized upon that and is shaping and developing the relationship much as he would a blue chip recruit.
Even beyond brand-building, I imagine this is a bit of a boost to recruits who may be on the fence and are announcing on NSD - if they pick Ohio State, that's guaranteed exposure.
Exactly. Nice way to sell the brand to future recruits.
How firm thy friendship..
What is this "post-coital glow" you speak of? The only post-coital glow ive ever seen is the glow of my headlights on the way home.....
"Failing to prepare is preparing to fail." - John Wooden
I think OSU should give ESPiN the middle finger the same way they did to us during Tatgate. I like Quint, and he seems like a good dude, but Jim Tressel is a great dude.
lol ESPN will do anything to sell their insider subscriptions. the latest commercial basically shows how they are trying to profit off of HIGH SCHOOL athletes, so even if the college players end up getting paid they will still have an unpaid labor force. The sad thing is that some people actualy buy these subsrciptions leading up to NSD just to read what a 17 year old kid thinks about facilities and classrooms at state of the art universities. Don't want to judge anyone who has an insider subscription, but is that really an effective use of cash?
Anyone have a list of all the players committing on their air?
If you cultivate relationships with sportswriters and sports media, if you give them good quotes, if you give them access, you will get favorable coverage. If not, well, ask Albert Belle, who never got his due for his accomplishments on the field.
Two years ago ESPN Outside the Lines had a Green Zone set up in Columbus, and the network was litigating OSU to the state Supreme Court over redactions to documents it had requested under the public records law.
Would they have been there if Tressel had been a committed and consistent "Friend of the Network?" I don't know. But we know that quite a few simmering scandals at other schools have gone largely unexplored by The Worldwide Leader, and Urban must know that, too. By building this bridge and allowing free, profitable traffic over it, he gives ESPN every reason in the world not to burn it.
The ESPN conflict of interest — acting as journalists to cover sporting events that they pay for and profit from televising — has burned us in the past. Big props to Coach Meyer for turning it (potentially) in our favor. Maybe next time some kid takes a $500 handshake (and it will happen), ESPN won't spend the ensuing eight months torching the countryside in Central Ohio.