Paralympics and the Media

How many times when the Olympics were being televised have you missed the games? Seeing that if your reading this, your into sports, so you probably haven't. The Olympics give those with extreme athletic ability to show off their stuff and represent their country on the biggest stage in the world.

There are also more athletes that have these extreme skills, but unfortunately they have been handicapped by a situation that leaves them unable to compete at the Olympics. This is why we have the Paralympics so these unbelievable people with great skills can still compete. They are just as stunning and eye opening as other Olympians but why don't we see them? How many of you have seen any events of the Paralympics? Probably not many because they are not really televised and are very poorly marketed. What kind of message are we sending that we can't support our athletes that our handicapped? Not a very good one.

Of course people say it's because there is no money in it or there are no sponsors supporting it. Obviously sponsors are nit going to support something if they know that it will never been seen. Why would a company want an advertisement that no one can see? To sum this up the media is hurting the Paralympics by not televising it or marketing it. If you did want to watch the Paralympics you probably wouldn't even know were to look.

The talent is there that will bring viewers and it is also amazing to see these athletes compete. We have people playing basketball in wheeclairs and athletes playing ice hockey with no legs. Tanni Grey-Thompson has dominated the wheelchair games at the Paralympics with 11 gold medals! It is inspirational and should be shown on tv.

The only thing holding it back is the support and the media. What are your thoughts on changing this problem?

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Has Money & Marketing Taken Over Sports?

How many times when your watching a game do you see comercials? Too many right? After listening to Dick Maxwells speech this morning I learned that there are 5 commercial breaks per quarter in every NFL football game. All lasting 110 secons. The media timeouts are not called during breaks of plays either. Their is a sideline referee that has 2 orange bands on his arms and when he signals it is time for a media timeout it happens. It doesnt matter if Peyton Manning was about to take the snap or the lions were about to blitz. Once the whistle is blown the ref signals to the broadcaster and the commentator then has 10 seconds to make a sendoff statement followed by 90 seconds of comercial. After commercial the commentator has 10 more seconds to bring it back for a totla of 110 seconds of marketing commericals. Do you think it is degrading to the game to have commercials dictate the flow of the game?

Personally I do, The marketing aspect has taken over sports completly. The big players don't even seem to play for teams anymore. Its almost as if they play for a brand. Hockey for example, when someone says sidney crosby one of the first things that comes to my mind is Reebok. Why? Because when I see him on T.V he is either in a Reebok commercial or in a game wearing all Reebok. Same as Michael Jordan, immediatly nike comes to your head. Same with Tiger, does PGA Tour come to your mind when you hear Tiger? No nike does...And maybe affairs but hats it lol.

My point is that sport has become overwhelmed with the advertising and marketing I feel were are losing some of the drive from players to play from the heart instead of their wallet. NBA is a great example. Those guys have enough money they don't need more. But yet, they are not playing because they are getting a pay cut which is still in the millions for almost all. What happened to play the game because you love it? Is that gone for good?

What will happen to Tiger next?

Throughout Tiger Woods' life he has experienced everything you can think of wether it be discrimination because of race, jealousy, or just plain bad luck. How could someone overcome things like these and still be the best player in the world and be flawless in situations beyond stressful and pressure packed.

Incidents with Tiger:

The first incident occurred when Tiger was in kindergarden. Tiger was bullied by older white kids and they tied him to a tree and labled him with the N-word. "I became aware of my racial identity on my first day of school" reported Tiger. Tiger states, "A group of sixth-graders tied me to a tree, spray-painted the word 'n- - - - -' on me, and threw rocks at me . . . And the teacher really didn't do much of anything.

"I used to live across the street from school . . . The teacher said, 'OK, just go home.' So I had to outrun all these kids going home . . . it was certainly an eye-opening experience."

The second incident was by a golf channel analyst Kelly Tilghman during on air commentary with Nick Faldo. Faldo and Tilghman were discussing young players who could challenge the world's No. 1 player toward the end of Friday's broadcast at Kapalua when Faldo suggested that ``to take Tiger on, maybe they should just gang up for a while.''

``Lynch him in a back alley,'' Tilghman replied.

The third incident occurred when tiger crashed his escalade into a fire hydrant outside of his jupiter home in Florida after his wife found out that he was cheating on her. She alledgedly busted out the windows of the car with one of his golf clubs. This later lead to the divorce of Tiger and Elin and the slow decline of Tiger Woods as a golfer and a person.