One of the main stories breaking on the opening day of College Football is the departure of ESPN's longest tenured College Football writer, Bruce Feldman. Bruce will be fine; he has accepted an offer to join CBSSports. He will be appearing on CBS's pregame and postgame TV coverage, starting tonight (on CBS's college sports network) and his first column for CBSSports.com has just posted. The wider significance of this move stems from a couple of days from this past July; some of you may recall that ESPN had suddenly suspended Bruce for having co-authored a book with Mike Leach, after having received prior approval from the network for participating in that project. Or they didn't suspend him, but did take him off of his assignments. After a couple of days of shaming from the College Football blogosphere as well as many of the national CFB writers, ESPN relented, but did not forget, as Bruce told Dan Patrick of his ensuing contract negotiation.

Feldman said his contract was up and an executive at ESPN questioned his "credibility." They at first offered him three years and a raise. Then they changed it to one year and no raise.

"If you’re a problem for them, you can’t exist in that world," Feldman said. He said when your employers aren’t truthful … "it’s a problem."

Specifically, the three-year offer came before July's drama, with the change to one-year coming after the suspension (and Feldman making a fool out of one of ESPN's execs during the disciplinary conference call).

... Vince Doria, he got all bent out of shape, and the word he used was "credibility." He said I had credibility issues. I'm going, wait a minute, you guys put Craig James on the air. You're talking about my credibility?

A week later, I'm in Bristol and the three-year extension and raise became a one-year deal with no raise. Something changed. There was some kind of disciplinary action.

With his employment with ESPN over as of last night, Feldman was on Dan Patrick's radio show this morning to talk about his time with ESPN - an appearance that produced the above quotes, and those to follow -  but specifically the shenanigans that the network was engaging in regarding the Leach/Craig James situation. SBNation has a transcript of the interview. There are plenty of blows launched against tWWL there, particularly relating to the hypocrisy of the network, taking advantage of Bruce's access with Leach, and then later attacking him because of it.

ESPN approved me doing the book with Mike Leach. They had benefited from my access, asked me to come on SportsCenter the day Leach was fired. I said, "I want to be clear, you identify me as writing a book with Mike Leach, not about Mike Leach."

They said yes and I did several SportsCenter hits that day. They asked for my help to set up a Leach interview after he had been fired. I knew that Leach was gonna sue them, in the spring of 2010, at that point he'd gotten the documentation and they had under-oath depositions with Craig James, which are all in the back of the book for the readers to see. It's record.

When I had went to my bosses at ESPN Magazine, up the food chain, they were clear on it. They knew what was gonna be in the book. They knew there was gonna be a lawsuit. Six months before the book went to print, I talked to ESPN's lawyers. So when it came out in mid-July and Norby and Vince or whoever got really angry, they shouldn't have been surprised.

Yep, when Texas Tech fired Mike Leach because of accusations leveled by one of ESPN's on-air "talent" (a word I use with tongue firmly in cheek in referring to Craig James) and fueled by their television coverage, they used the information and insights that Feldman had gained from collaborating with Leach to explain the situation to SportsCenter viewers, and later used him to attempt to get an interview. He gave the network and its counsel a heads up that Leach was going to sue them after seeing the documentation that Leach had gathered against the network, and still network executives were 'shocked' over the book's publication.

Continue reading this post »

Never let it be said that Larry Scott does not know how to leverage the marketing opportunities of his conference.  While the Pac-12 coaches were hanging out at ESPN's Bristol, CT headquarters for day 2 of their media tour, Scott was in New York finalizing the deal for the creation and programming of the Pac-12 network. Commissioner Scott is set to make the official announcement in just a moment, but Jon Wilner has broken some of the key details via his Twitter. Some of the early key details:

• Pac-12 announcing creation of six regional networks and one national network.
• The network will debut in August 2012 to a nationwide audience (Wilner shares an estimate that the national Pac-12 network will reach 40 million households at its time of launch).
• The Pac-12 Cable partners are Time Warner Cable, Comcast, Cox and Bright House.
• Pac-12 Networks available "on any device so long as fans authenticated".
• As Wilner noted in one of his Twitter posts, the conference will retain full equity rights to the networks. This is a really big deal for the long-term financials for UCLA and the other schools of the conference.
  

Wilner has been all over the conference network since it's intended creation came out of last year's conference expansion talks. After hearing during yesterday's media event that details on the network-to-be were likely to be firmed up in August, he broke the news of this afternoon's announcement earlier this morning on his Mercury News blog, even making the correct guess of Time Warner as the conference's key media partner, despite Scott's public meetings with Fox Sports brass. We'll be updating as more information on the deal comes to light.

UPDATE (N): One of the cool things about Pac 12 owning and controlling the network is that it is potentially really good news all the Pac 12 non-revenue programs that have been so successful for the conference over the years.

UPDATE II (P): Today's announcement deals only with the cable television rights to Pac-12 sports and the network. Satellite TV operators were not part of this round of negotiations, but during the Q&A following the announcement, Scott did say that he looks forward to conversations with satellite operators to add to the conference's cable partnerships.

Continue reading this post »

As we wrote this morning, and many other blogs and sports media outlets have been reporting since last night, ESPN had suspended their highly respected College Football writer Bruce Feldman, after the publication of the Mike Leach autobiography  Swing Your Sword which he helped Leach edit with the prior approval of ESPN executives. 

After nearly a full day of body blows from much of the sports blogosphere, as well as writers such as Stewart Mandel, Dan Wetzel, and SI's Andy Staples going so far as to say that SI could replace him with Feldman, ESPN capitulates. They just released an incoherent statement claiming that Bruce Feldman has "resumed his assignments" and that there was "never any suspension" against him. Here is the full statement of tWWL’s surrender (ESPN’s servers have crashed. Thanks to SBN for putting it up on our network’s Facebook page):

"There was never any suspension or any other form of disciplinary action. We took the time to review his upcoming work assignments in light of the book to which he contributed and will manage any conflicts or other issues as needed. Bruce has resumed his assignments."

The statement is of course laughable because how can the network claim that Feldman has "resumed" his assignments if he was never disciplined. To note, Feldman was apparently childishly kept out of the ESPY awards as well. The statement reeks of someone in Bristol either realizing the shitstorm that the decision has kicked up among many of the most-plugged in sportswriters and fans, and/or ESPN's legal counsel getting word to the executives that made this decision that you cannot punish an employee for doing something that they had given permission to do, even if the result hurts their precious widdle fee fees.

What we have here is ESPN getting caught in a nationwide blog and twitter swarm and then having to cave with a three sentenced of garble which apparently took their lawyers an entire work day to draft. It is a hilarious and crazy testament to the sad state of a media empire that is completely tone-deaf and out of touch. I imagine that Feldman is going to take the classy route and be nothing but gracious to ESPN and other folks. However, at this point I hope he and his agent are exploring other options and find his way out of that Mickey Mouse operation. SBN will make perfect sense for you Bruce, as your former tWWL colleague Rob Neyer found earlier in the year.

This post is not necessarily directly related to UCLA athletics but it does concern coverage of UCLA football. Especially it concerns one of the best writers in college football, who has always done a great job in covering the Bruins from a national perspective.

I woke up this morning and found my inbox exploding over a media firestorm around Bruce Feldman, one of the best sports writers (and a blogger) in the country, who covers college football for the tWWL. Feldman has always been one of my favorite reporters, who have always made effort to cover a story  beyond just cutting and pasting press releases from athletic department staffers.

Apparently ESPN has suspended Feldman for helping Mike Leach write his recently released biography - Swing Your Sword - even after Feldman reportedly had permission from the networks. This has led to an all out firestorm in the blogosphere and the Twitterverse. We think there is a huge opportunity for a happy ending if Feldman just tells ESPN to take a hike and come over where he really belongs - bloggers at SBNation. Let me lay it out after the jump.

Continue reading this post »

Yesterday, local waste of oxygen Eric Sondheimer from the SUC Times needed to excrete some random words onto his blog in order to justify his continued employment. Unfortunately with "nuggets" like this particular post, he makes it clear that he's just as much of a lazy incompetent hack as his coworkers:

Take the case with UCLA. In a year where the receiver position in Southern California has been stacked, the Bruins have struggled on who to recruit and then when someone went elsewhere, they didn't know what to do.

Is everyone sufficiently scared yet? They don't know what to do! How are we ever going to fill up our 15 available scholarships this year if we're striking out on wide receivers? I mean, clearly that's a bigger positional need than, say, quarterback (Hundley), or OL/DL (four more rides spoken for). We don't have any WRs coming in people! Well, except Shaq Evans transferring in from Notre Dame.

No, what am I saying? It's panic time! Clearly even with the limited available scholarships, we need another WR Right Now. It's not like Neuheisel has ever closed well on recruits...oh wait, yes he has.

The thing is, none of this means that we'll close well this year or get a bunch of pleasant surprises on signing day like this past year. Recruiting is a tricky game and notoriously difficult to project. That's what makes posts like Sondheimer's a ridiculous waste of space. If signing day comes and goes and we haven't addressed holes in the roster, then he gets the green light to fire away, but nitpicking on a position that isn't even a positional need and a failure to wait until signing day on a coach that has a history of closing out strong on his recruiting classes just reeks of concern trolling. How do these people stay employed?

It looks like the pre-emptive hit piece from Chris Foster "reporting" about 3 UCLA players getting suspended (and then listing all isolated incidents with disciplinary issues under Rick Neuheisel without any context whatsoever in terms of Neuheisel taking strong actions to address them) has had its intended effect. Scott Reid immediately followed yesterday afternoon by putting up a BS post about 6 UCLA starters getting suspended and voila now everyone is in a frenzy.

Jon Wilner is concern trolling up north about UCLA being in "chaos." Now we have Ed Cunningham from "ESPNLA" (a former Washington Husky - yeah, I am sure he is totally impartial and objective when it comes to Neuheisel) concern trolling about the need for a "cultural shift" in Westwood.

So here is an assignment for everyone on BN. Can anyone point to articles, columns, blogposts or TV segments from these guys or the LA Times or any of ESPN's "college football gurus" about Cheatey Petey's program being out of control from 2005 to 2008, when his players were getting arrested and accused of charges such soliciting hookers, assault with deadly weapons, sexual assaults, spousal battery, beating up students on campus, creating racist Facebook groups, and also getting accused of taking in hundreds of thousands in illegal benefits? Can anyone point to anything Ed Cunningham wrote or Jon Wilner wrote around 2006 or 2007 expressing concern about "chaos" or the need for "culture change" in Cheatey Petey's program?

Continue reading this post »

NBC Sports provides a fun little "prediction" for this Saturday (emphasis added but no link for garbage):

Well known for their penchant for scheduling non-conference pushovers, the Wildcats host lowly UCLA.

All of this talk about the Bruins’ new "Revolver" offense (they apparently didn’t want to steal Nevada’s "Pistol" name) seems to indicate desperation on the part of head coach Rick Neuheisel and offensive coordinator Norm Chow, who both know that place-kicker Kai Forbath remains the team’s most proven weapon.

There’s no reason not to give the Kansas State defense, which has been bolstered by key JUCO additions, the nod over an injury-riddled Bruin offense

So who did NBC Sports recruit to write up to "predict" UCLA's season opener? This guy: John Tamanaha, a Trogan hack whose career highlights include:

• Adjunct Professor at the University of Southern California — where he teaches a sports public relations class within the Annenberg School for Communications & Journalism.
• Associate Sports Information Director at the University of Southern California — where he worked primarily with the football and men’s basketball programs and also served as the Director of Athletic Publications.
• Editor of USC Report — where he handled the day-to-day operation of a publication dedicated to full coverage of the USC Trojans athletic program.

Thanks NBC Sports. Not only they just served up red meat for our football team but they just exposed what kind of classless hacks work at Heritage Hall, always working to cover up the stain of the most corrupt athletic program in America. Fight on NBC Sports.

GO BRUINS.

Well we all knew this was coming. The NCAA is going to meet later this week to examine the mountain of allegations against the most scandalous athletic program in college athletics. So to set the stage the Trogan PR machine called on its Southern California PR platform, aka the LA Times to serve up a puff piece of Mike Garrett, the sleazeball athletic director under fire.  To get the job, the LA Times sent in David Wharton, whose track record includes writing a glowing piece dubbing Karl Dorrell as the "Thinker" from Westwood and a pulitzer piece on the appearance of Layla Kiffin (doing investigative google searches on her "long blond hair and bright smile'").

Wharton asks you to grab a tissue for Mikey at the get go:

The frown that Mike Garrett often wears in public, an expression made of blunt features set hard as stone, gives way to something unexpected. His eyes glisten with tears.

"I frankly don't know why I'm being so emotional," he says.

Feeling sick yet? It get's funnier. Poor poor Mikey. This piece is all set up like a goodbye column, as Wharton tries really hard to absolve this clown of any responsibility for the pile of scandals accumulated under his watch (emphasis added throughout):

Using McKay as a model, he surrounded himself with talent and gave staff freedom to meet his tough demands.

"Some people don't work in that kind of environment," says Daryl Gross, a former assistant who became the athletic director at Syracuse. "But if you're creative and you don't have to ask him for a lot of structure, you will flourish."

You guys get that? In other words don't blame Mikey for not exercising any kind of control over Chetey Petey and Timmeh Floyd who were given green light to get "creative" with their (allegedly) renegade programs. Oh that's not all the funny in this garbage piece from the Trogan Times. We got more after the jump.

Continue reading this post »