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Ed Note: This is being reposted under a new name because our parent company Bloguin Inc. received a lovely cease and desist letter about trademark infringements of a certain word that rhymes with "flemmy."
The fine people at Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner, LLP can take the name of our fake awards, but they can't take away our desire to hand out fake awards. With that, we've taken the liberty of scrubbing all of the references to the word that rhymes with "flemmy" and deleted the article at their request while republishing our mythical awards and panel's votes under a yet to be determined, but totally trademarked name. After all, we have to protect AA's valuable intellectual property from anyone and everyone. Enjoy!
We polled several members of our staff and several sportswriters and media observers from around the country to take part in our panel. The rules were simple – each writer could name up to 3 choices in each category with 3 points for 1st, 2 points for 2nd, and 1 point for 3rd for 11 totally made up award categories. The selection with the most points wins. The panelists could pick whoever they felt deserving in the given categories. Here now AA's First Annual People's Sports TV Awards To Be Named And Trademarked Later…
1) Best Live Event Thingy
WINNER: Super Bowl XLVI
First runner-up: The Masters
Second runner-up: The Olympics
NBC's coverage of the Patriots-Giants Super Bowl takes our top spot in the first award being handed out. NBC's Olympics coverage from London finished third and CBS's Masters production finishes out the Top 3. It's easy to see why NBC would win this category as they doubled up with our next award…
2) Best Live Event Thingy That Appears Multiple Times Throughout The Year
WINNER: Sunday Night Football
First runner-up: NBA on TNT
Second runner-up: EPL on ESPN
The people are all in agreement. Sunday Night Football is the highest rated network primetime series on American television and for good reason. From the announcers to the studio to the camera work and production, it's the best all around. Even their choice of intro singers blows away the competition. (Comparing Carrie Underwood & Faith Hill to Cee Lo Green covering The Ramones is like comparing the '72 Dolphins to the 2012 Kansas City Chiefs.) SNF received the highest number of points and first place votes of any nominee in any category.
3) Best Program That Looks Suspiciously Similar To A Documentary
WINNER: Dream Team
First runner-up: Survive & Advance
Second runner-up: The Announcement
Several 30 for 30 documentaries received votes from the panel, but it's NBA TV's Dream Team doc that takes home the prize in what was our closest vote of the People's Sports TV Awards To Be Named And Trademarked Later. The Dream Team doc was the highest ever rated program for NBA TV when it aired last summer.
4) The 30 for 30 Award
WINNER: 30 for 30
First runner-up: Real Sports w/ Bryant Gumbel
Second runner-up: 24/7 and A Football Life
Never fear Bill Simmons! After voicing his displeasure over being snubbed earlier this week, the people's committee is finally giving 30 for 30 the respect it deserves as the best scripted sports series. Of course, it may not be as meaningful as one of those poorly drawn Deadspin awards, but we did name the category after 30 for 30 and hey, recognition is recognition!
5) Best Weekly Show That Features A Desk And/Or Headgear
WINNER: College Gameday
First runner-up: Inside the NBA
Second runner-up: Football Night in America
The fictional title of "best studio show" has ping ponged back and forth between ESPN's College Gameday and TNT's Inside the NBA for a decade now. Our panel narrowly gives the decision to Gameday and their crew of Chris Fowler, Kirk Herbstreit, Lee Corso, and Desmond Howard. Of course, if Ryan Lochte makes another appearance as a guest picker this year, or Lee Corso actually kills a live animal, we reserve the right to take it back.
6) Best Daily Show That Features A Desk And/Or Heads On Sticks
WINNER: MLB Tonight
First runner-up: PTI
Second runner-up: NFL Live
In what was one of the closest votes, MLB Network's superb studio show barely beat out ESPN's Pardon the Interruption. Although MLB Network is still in its beginning years as a network, its nightly studio show has already surpassed the competition as the daily authority for baseball fans with a number of respected contributors.
7) Best Anchorman/Anchorwoman
WINNER: Ernie Johnson
First runner-up: Dan Patrick
Second runner-up: Bob Ley
Bob Costas and the paperweights and doorstops he has received over the years counts for naught in this space! Our best studio host is TNT's Ernie Johnson, who is the glue that holds together Inside the NBA. Hopefully this award doesn't go to his head and he starts to deliver brief lectures at halftime now.
8) Best Analyzer Person
WINNER: Charles Barkley
First runner-up: Tony Dungy
Second runner-up: Jay Bilas
It really couldn't be anybody else but Sir Charles. Although Tony Dungy and Jay Bilas are certainly worthy of places in the Top 3, Barkley appeared on 10 ballots and doubled the points of second place in our poll. And he gets bonus points for continually calling out Skip Bayless as well.
9) Best Announcer Person
WINNER: Mike Emrick
First runner-up: Al Michaels
Second runner-up: Ian Darke
Many great play by play announcers received votes including Vin Scully, Mike Tirico, Ian Eagle, Dan Shulman and others. But it was the voice of hockey, Doc Emrick, that rose to the top with the most first place votes and appearing on the most ballots.
10) Best Game Analyzer Person
WINNER: Cris Collinsworth
First runner-up: Bill Raftery
Second runner-up: Mike Mayock
Sunday Night Football continues to mop up the awards as this is their 3rd win and 7th Top 3 finish out of 11 award categories. Collinsworth appeared on more than half of the ballots and has clearly cemented himself as the top NFL analyst working today.
11) Best Reporter Person
WINNER: Tom Verducci
First runner-up: Michele Tafoya
Second runner-up: Lisa Salters
The reporter category was perhaps the toughest with 15 people gaining votes and a mix of true sideline reporters, newsbreakers, and folks who do a little bit of everything. In the end, it was that versatility of Tom Verducci that wins him our award. Verducci works as an insider for MLB Network, a field level reporter for TBS, a game analyst for Fox, and writes for Sports Illustrated and does all at a high level.
The Panel:
Richard Deitsch – Sports Illustrated, @richarddeitsch
Steve Lepore – SB Nation, @stevelepore
Dan Levy – National Lead Writer, Bleacher Report, @danlevythinks
Paulsen – Sports Media Watch, @paulsen_smw
Keith Thibault – Sports Media Journal, @SMJournal
Amanda Rykoff – sportswriter, @amandarykoff
Ken Fang, Reva Friedel, Brad Gagnon, Joe Lucia, David Rogers, Matt Yoder, Ryan Yoder – Awful Announcing
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