Once, debating why man had invented sports, Sam unloaded this haymaker: “Sports is man’s joke on God, Max. You see, God says to man, ‘I’ve created a universe where it seems like everything matters, where you’ll have to grapple with life and death and in the end you’ll die anyway, and it won’t really matter.’ So man says to God, ‘Oh, yeah? Within your universe we’re going to create a sub-universe called sports, one that absolutely doesn’t matter, and we’ll follow everything that happens in it as if it were life and death.’”

In determining why I’ve become so invested in sports teams – and why writing about sports media is my favorite hobby – I often think back to this quote. It’s certainly a universal idea, but there are moments when it doesn’t seem that way, and what’s happening in Arizona right now shows that there are times when sports trickles a little bit too close to the real world.

The state’s sports franchises have been dragged into the debate around the controversial new immigration law, and talks of moving major league events including the 2011 MLB All-Star Game (but, interestingly, not the BCS Championship Game, as noted by Dr. Saturday) led Governor Jan Brewer to write a column posted to one of the most trafficked news sites online: a little sports empire known as ESPN.com. Sure, it may not make sense that Brewer is taking politics to this audience, but the lines have already been greatly blurred to the point that this was absolutely necessary. As she writes:

By now, sports fans everywhere have heard something about the passage of Senate Bill 1070, a measure I signed into law. It has resulted in protests outside ballparks hosting our Arizona Diamondbacks and has led to calls on Major League Baseball commissioner Bud Selig to strip the City of Phoenix’s opportunity to host baseball’s Midsummer Classic in July 2011.

Urging Major League Baseball to take away next year’s All-Star Game from Phoenix is the wrong play. In Arizona, both proponents and opponents of Senate Bill 1070 have stated that economic boycotts are an inappropriate and misguided response to an issue that is clearly worthy of proper public debate and discourse. Put simply, history shows that boycotts backfire and harm innocent people. Boycotts are just more politics and manipulation by out-of-state interests.

Her logic is economic, not philosophical, in nature, but there is a connection here. The fact is that you can’t separate the interests of the people of a state with the professional athletes who wear uniforms emblazoned with the hometown. It’s nice to try, and as unfair as it may be to those unwilling to participate, it’s a little too late. If you look closely in the photo that accompanies this post, there’s one sign that says, “Shut up and play basketball.” Of course, it was taken likely during the middle of the game, so they were playing basketball, but the wishful thinking of this Phoenician is really no much more than that.

Mike Wise, a sports columnist at the Washington Post, published a brilliant piece this morning talking about the political tenor echoing through the US Airways Center, Chase Field and many other parts of the sports landscape. He properly gives the Phoenix Suns owner, Robert Sarver, the credit he deserves for not shying away from the issue of the day and championing his stance, with the support of his players, through jerseys that said “Los Suns” instead of the team’s normal wordmark. His defense of Sarver is well put, and he’s right to say why this is a valid arena for debate:

One of the reasons we want sports to be a separate arena is because we like the safe feeling that the winner’s circle is colorless, genderless, accepting of any ethnicity or socioeconomic group. It’s a relief from real-world complexity. Everything from the score to the time has finality to it, genuine resolution. It’s not intractable; it’s resolvable.

But when political issues so pervade a community, a sports franchise — from the owner to the players — can’t pretend they are somehow above or below the fray.

Sam Kellerman’s idealist view of sports is an important one to keep – it helps to remind sports fans on the morning after a bad loss that this is just a game. But in the scheme of things, it’s also one of the most prominent platforms of the community, and ignoring that role is a terrible game plan.

This post is cross-posted from Dave’s blog, State of the Fourth Estate. Follow Dave on Twitter here.

But according to a GQ.com profile on ESPN’s burgeoning plans for local sports, this image is only partly accurate.

The piece, written by Gabriel Sherman, contends that the new local sites offered by ESPN – New York, Boston, Dallas, LA, and Chicago – are pretty modest operations:

Each site is staffed by a half-dozen or so reporters and editors to cover the NFL, NBA, Major League Baseball, the MLS, and high school sports. It’s a shoestring effort, given that sports desks at some of their newspaper competitors have staffs ten times that size, even after layoffs.

And although the new local sites can pull content from ESPN.com’s slew of writers and treasure trove of videos, the local outfits still have to battle for respect:

It’s an odd position for ESPN to be cast as an underdog when in every other medium it’s been dominant for years. When the Cowboys opened their new stadium this season, the press office assigned Watkins and MacMahon terrible seats in the press box, shunting them off next to The Gilmer Mirror and KTXS News 12 out of Abilene, Texas. (“We got fucked,” MacMahon griped.)

Still, ESPN’s ragtag group of local reporters and bloggers will get no respect from grizzled New York Post vet Phil Mushnick. On sports journalism, and ESPN’s role in its perceived decline:

“Sports journalism is dead. The games have become props; the sports have become props. I think at the start of every day, ESPN’s motives are pure, but before it’s put on the air, on the Web, or in the magazine, it’s all been ESPN-ized: It’s there to self-promote, cross-promote. I’m frightened for whistle-blowers. It’ll be a good time for bad guys when newspapers go down.”

And although, as the article notes, ESPN didn’t kill print journalism (it’s not dead yet, is it? How do we know when this is official?), its local operations are being perceived as their latest attempt to monopolize sports news. ESPN contends that the local sites are just an evolutionary tactic in cross branding, a natural next step in achieving “synergy” across their various media platforms.

Regardless, it’s not too crazy to picture a future where ESPN is the only game in town.

A colleague (who is handsome and wise) recently discovered an old Media Metrix report delineating “World Wide Web Audience Ratings” for December 1998. It’s a remarkable study, categorizing thousands of sites and conglomerated web companies.

This thing is like finding election results from 1880; like coming across the original Billboard music chart. It looks familiar, like you should know all of the component elements, but it’s unrecognizable. As though they’re all brands made up for movies.

Before we get into examples of what I mean, I’d like to point something else out. What I have here before me is a 300-page spiral bound book. As in, paper. As in, in 1998, Media Metrix printed out thousands of 300-page books to give to people to deepen their understanding of the Web. I considered various analogies here, and settled on this one.

So, join me as we walk twelve years backward into the halcyon days of the World Wide Web.

The Introduction
The modern usefulness of the introduction can be summarized by the image at left. In 1998, those paying for detailed statistics about various web properties were nonetheless stymied by the concept of visiting a site from work and home. (They were also stymied by Venn diagrams, necessitating a labeling of the overlap.)

If you’re actually interested in the data, here are the demographics used. A solid million of them were teenage girls, and yet Justin Bieber is nowhere to be found, despite already being four years old.

>>>NEXT PAGE: The Rankings:

HLN host and The View panelist Joy Behar and actress Cynthia Nixon received the top honors at the Gay an Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation Awards handed out March 13 in New York.  Behar won the excellence in media honors and Nixon received the Vito Russo Award for advocacy by an openly lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender media person.

The New York Times won the award for best overall newspaper coverage, with the NYT’s Frank Rich winning for best columnist, Tara Parker-Pope winning for best newspaper article for “Kept from a Dying Partner’s Bedside” and Benoit Denizet-Lewis winning for best magazine article for his NYT magazine piece “Coming Out in Middle School.” Best television news segment went to CNN’s “Why Will Won’t Say the Pledge of Allegiiance” while Rachel Maddow won for best TV news journalism for “Uganda Be Kiddng Me.”

Outstanding digital journalism article was won by ESPN.com’s “We Love You, This Won’t Change a Thing’” by John Buccigross who told the story of Brendan Burke’s coming out to his father U.S. Olympic hockey coach Brian Burke. Brendan died in a February car crash. The award was shared with AfterElton.com’s  “Why Can’t You Just Butch Up? Gay Men, Effeminacy, and Our War with Ourselves” by Brent Hartinger.

Best Spanish language newspaper article went Pilar Marrero of La Opinion to “Mas familias de dos papás o dos mamas” for a story on adoption by same-sex couples while Univision and Telemundo divided up the outstanding Spanish-language television journalism awards.

In April, SportsGrid will take Mediaite’s proprietary Power Grid algorithm and apply it to sports, gauging the performance and popularity of over 5,400 players, teams, coaches, front office execs, and members of the sports media.

To get a leg up on the launch, and the crazy arguing that will ensue (LeBron vs. Kobe, Ohio State vs. Michigan, Stuart Scott vs. local sports anchor Chip Carter), SportsGrid’s Dan Fogarty and Glenn Davis count down their Top 25 sports bloggers and internet personalities.

There are plenty of heavy hitters on the list, but much like every good lineup needs a three-point specialist or a defensive stopper, this squad wouldn’t be complete without writers who serve a more niche audience. Think of them as Bruce Bowen, minus the contempt from their peers.

Note: if you are not a fan of the gratuitous use of sports puns when arbitrarily ranking bloggers, TOO BAD, because we’re going to the hole until the fat lady sings.

With that in mind: every team needs a couple of goons to start fights, and some bangers on the inside…

ESPN

This week they’re organizing 1,000 house parties nationwide with ESPN.com league managers and recruited “ambassadors” hosting drafts. They’ve advertised the event on the air and have gotten the help of House Party, Inc., a social marketing company specializing in event production. By the looks of it, ESPN is relying on social media to market, encouraging fans to “Spread the word by posting to Twitter, Facebook, YouTube.” Videos of live drafts online provide ways for Footballers and leagues to interact and add to the fervor.

For most of the male population this is the funnest, most anticipated event of their sports year. But for those of us who don’t understand the allure, this story is utterly incomprehensible – a television network hosting 1,000 parties around the country to do what? But that’s the brilliance of the whole concept: targeting an ultra-specific but ultra-enthused demographic eager to throw down money for their chance to draft the perfect team.

Plugging the event in a press release, Jason Waram claims the parties are to “celebrate” the small congregations of straight men who have made the Fantasy a such a successful Reality.

“We’re kicking off fantasy football this year by celebrating it the way it began – in people’s homes and social circles,” said Jason Waram, vice president of fantasy games for ESPN. “The strength of this game is rooted in its communities and the sports passions they share, and that is why we’ve seen ESPN Fantasy Football grow nearly exponentially since it began on ESPN.com, including over 33 times the participation since 2005 alone.”

Sports have always been events that distract people from real life, and perhaps ESPN is taking advantage of these times of recession to provide some fun for the whole family (and simultaneously market the shit out of Fantasy). Check out at this picture from a recent fantasy draft party on the front page of ESPN’s Fantasy Football page today:

Aside from distracting from the plummeting economy, draft parties are also stimulating the job market. Behold, the greatest post to ever grace the food/beverage/hospitality jobs section of Craig’s List:

“I am looking for an attractive woman in her twenties to grill hotdogs on my rooftop wearing a bikini for my fantasy football draft. This will be an easy job and pays well. It will only be a couple hours work and I will pay you 200 dollars; all you have to do is look pretty and serve us hotdogs. After your work is done you are welcome to stay longer for free beer, food, and all the fantasy football tips and analysis you can handle. Please tell me a little bit about yourself and be sure to include photos. Thanks!”

Kudos to Fantasy Football for relieving all our distress over unemployment.

ESPN told Mediaite the “specific tools and implementations are in development” for greater incorporation of social media into ESPN.com and beyond, and last night that plan took effect. How did it go?

For Twitter fans and sports fans alike, the results were promising. ESPN put a link on the front page of ESPN.com to a page featuring a CoverItLive chat, which incorporates tweets from its reporters and other staffers and user submitted comments. This technology is not new – we’ve used it here at Mediaite – but it is ESPN’s first foray into the world of live blogging in this way.

Bill Simmons explained what was about to happen prior to the game, and his involvement, last night on Twitter. “Sorry in advance for the tweet-binge during Bos-NY. ESPN.com is trying a little experiment tonite,” he wrote.

What followed involved Simmons, ESPN reporters Jayson Stark and Rob Neyer and more contributing live streaming tweets into the chat window. Also periodically stopping by was “ESPN Stats and Information” with real time discussion points and bits of info. Readers could ask questions or make comments, and a moderator would put that through into the chat, for anyone to respond to.

Was it revolutionary? No. But it does show the power of what can happen when the “Worldwide Leader in Sports” combines broadcasting the game on TV, drawing in interested users to its Web property and pulling from its personalities and talent in the social media world for one-stop sports entertainment.

What’s more, it was fun. Neyer was ribbing the Sports Guy, readers were making smart observations picked up in the feed – it was the beginning of what will hopefully be the future of ESPN. And it does a great job to quiet the critics last week.

> Update: A tipster noted this is not ESPN’s first time live-blogging an event this way.

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