ESPN Reaches 12-Year Deal With ACC

By Jesse Jones

The ACC will finally be getting national attention!

For years, ACC fans have only been able to watch the ACC on Raycom Sports, with ESPN games here and there.  That is, until now.

The Atlantic Coast Conference and ESPN have agreed to a 12-year deal that would give the network exclusive rights to conference football and men’s basketball games.  Women’s basketball, lacrosse, and other sports will be shown as well.  The family of networks (ESPN, ESPN 2, ESPN 3, ESPN U, ABC on certain occasions) will all broadcast the games.  The deal is believed to be worth 1.86 billion over the 12 years.

The two sides were in negotiation for the past 15 months, a span that saw the ACC win a record setting eight national championships across sports.

“This is the first time we at ESPN have basically done an all-in deal with a conference where we worked to be able to acquire all their product,” ESPN executive vice president of content John Skipper said. “I think that speaks to how much we value the product that’s in the ACC.”

During football season, ESPN would broadcast conference-controlled games on Saturdays, Thursday nights and Labor Day on one of its channels or online.  ESPN would also broadcast the ACC Championship.  ESPN will do the same during basketball season, and broadcast the women’s ACC tournament.

ESPN 3D Coming Soon!

By Jesse Jones

ESPN is creating a channel that will broadcast sports in 3D.  The channel will start broadcasting this year, with the first event being the first match of the 2010 FIFA World Cup (South Africa v Mexico).  This year alone, the channel will broadcast a minimum of 85 games/events.  ESPN also plans to broadcast the 2011 BCS National Championship game in 3D next year.  If you want to watch some sports in 3D, go buy some glasses and get the channel!

“Without Bias”

By Jesse Jones

Tonight airing on ESPN will be a documentary about Len Bias.  For those of you who do not know, Len Bias was one of the greatest basketball players in Maryland history, and was the second overall pick by the Boston Celtics in the 1984 draft.

Sadly, after he was drafted, he died on a cocaine overdose.  The whole entire Maryland community was hurt by this, and some of the Boston area as well.  The “what-ifs” go on-and-on, such as pairing up with Larry Bird, and competing against Michael Jordan.

To find out everything you need to know about his situation and story, watch ESPN tonight at 8 PM.

What Grinds My Gears Pt. 5

I really do not understand this at all….

A Little Insecure?

By Jesse Jones

Everybody remembers when LeBron James was dunked on twice by Courtney Lee in the 2009 NBA Eastern Conference Finals.

Now ESPN has reported that LeBron James has been dunked on again, this time by a kid at his basketball camp.  There were multiple videos of the dunk, but LeBron James and Nike had the videos confiscated and erased.

Now why would a player who is considered the best in the NBA by so many need all these videos deleted?  Easy answer; LeBron is insecure about his image.  After losing to the Celtics in the playoffs last year, and losing to the Magic this past season, LeBron was quick to walk off the court.  This year he wouldn’t even attend the press conference.

And now this.  I just do not understand why LeBron would feel that these videos would have to be deleted.  People are going to find out about the dunk anyways, via Twitter, Facebook, ESPN, and other media outlets.  This will just have more people questioning him and losing respect, such as Jemele Hill and Skip Bayless (who refers to LeBron has “Prince James” and now “LeBrick”).

LeBron is very mature for his age and does not get into much drama, but are these occurrences showing us something about him?  I think the answer is yes.