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ESPN, the Worldwide Leader in Sports, has never loomed larger

Now, in the heart of baseball season, a time of NBA and NHL championships, another fabulous Nadal-Federer final, the start of golf's U.S. Open and the lockouts
Frank Deford|
ESPN, the Worldwide Leader in Sports, has never loomed larger
ESPN, the Worldwide Leader in Sports, has never loomed larger

Now, in the heart of baseball season, a time of NBA and NHL championships, another fabulous Nadal-Federer final, the start of golf's U.S. Open and the lockouts -- continued and impending -- in the NFL and the NBA, one name in sport still stands above the rest: ESPN.

Of course, the self-proclaimed Worldwide Leader in Sports always bestrides the athletic world like a colossus, but in the astrology of sport, this June has even more so been under the sign of the behemoth.

First, and most revealing, is what ESPN didn't do. It didn't buy the U.S. rights to the four Olympics beginning in 2014. It let NBC, owned by Comcast, pay through the nose to keep them. This absolutely stunned everybody in television. The Olympics are the diadem ESPN has never worn. But the decision of the cable conglomerate -- and remember, ESPN has more of what we now call platforms for the eye and ear than Manolo Blahnik has for the feet: at least a dozen TV outlets, a radio network, a magazine, multiple Internet sites -- suggests a diminished status for the Olympics.

In a lot of eyes the Olympics are now as much a festival as a competition. ESPN made every effort to successfully steal the rights to the World Cup away from NBC. You see, that's the epitome of passion in sport. And if you also own rights to Major League Baseball, football and basketball, plus other world championships, then you don't need a pretty opening ceremony. What ESPN wants is blood-and-guts games, bouts, races and matches -- and so do its loyal male eyeballs.

The fact that ESPN didn't buy a ticket to ride the Olympics tells me the Olympics are now a silver medal in the United States.

Also this week, the monster new tell-all history of ESPN by James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales promptly hit No. 1 on The New York Times best-seller list. Details of the sexy shenanigans that go on at ESPN for lack of much else to do in Bristol, Conn., make for prurient reading, but the most fascinating part of the book is how long it took bankers and broadcasters to catch on to what a bonanza a sports network could be.

And this week also saw the introduction of a new website, financed by ESPN, dedicated to more long-form sportswriting. It's called Grantland, named for Grantland Rice, who was, for the first half of the last century, a one-man sports journalism juggernaut -- newspapers mostly, but also movies, radio, magazines. He wrote 67 million words on sports, prose and poetry -- an average of 3,500 words a day for 53 years. So it's certainly appropriate to name this site after him.

But still, not even Grantland Rice was ESPN. Nobody ever has been. In sports. In journalism.

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Frank Deford
FRANK DEFORD

Frank Deford is among the most versatile of American writers. His work has appeared in virtually every medium, including print, where he has written eloquently for Sports Illustrated since 1962. Deford is currently the magazine's Senior Contributing Writer and contributes a weekly column to SI.com. Deford can be heard as a commentator each week on Morning Edition. On television he is a regular correspondent on the HBO show Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel. He is the author of 15 books, and his latest,The Enitled, a novel about celebrity, sex and baseball, was published in 2007 to exceptional reviews. He and Red Smith are the only writers with multiple features in The Best American Sports Writing of the Century. Editor David Halberstam selected Deford's 1981 Sports Illustrated profile on Bobby Knight (The Rabbit Hunter) and his 1985 SI profile of boxer Billy Conn (The Boxer and the Blonde) for that prestigious anthology. For Deford the comparison is meaningful. "Red Smith was the finest columnist, and I mean not just sports columnist," Deford told Powell's Books in 2007. "I've always said that Red is like Vermeer, with those tiny, priceless pieces. Five hundred words, perfectly chosen, crafted. Best literary columnist, in any newspaper, that I've ever seen." Deford was elected to the National Association of Sportscasters and Sportswriters Hall of Fame. Six times at Sports Illustrated Deford was voted by his peers as U.S. Sportswriter of The Year. The American Journalism Review has likewise cited him as the nation's finest sportswriter, and twice he was voted Magazine Writer of The Year by the Washington Journalism Review. Deford has also been presented with the National Magazine Award for profiles; a Christopher Award; and journalism honor awards from the University of Missouri and Northeastern University; and he has received many honorary degrees. The Sporting News has described Deford as "the most influential sports voice among members of the print media," and the magazine GQ has called him, simply, "The world's greatest sportswriter." In broadcast, Deford has won a Cable Ace award, an Emmy and a George Foster Peabody Award for his television work. In 2005 ESPN presented a television biography of Deford's life and work, You Write Better Than You Play. Deford has spoken at well over a hundred colleges, as well as at forums, conventions and on cruise ships around the world. He served as the editor-in-chief of The National Sports Daily in its brief but celebrated existence. Deford also wrote Sports Illustrated's first Point After column, in 1986. Two of Deford's books, the novel, Everybody's All-American, and Alex: The Life Of A Child, his memoir about his daughter who died of cystic fibrosis, have been made into movies. Two of his original screenplays have also been filmed. For 16 years Deford served as national chairman of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, and he remains chairman emeritus. He resides in Westport, CT, with his wife, Carol. They have two grown children – a son, Christian, and a daughter, Scarlet. A native of Baltimore, Deford is a graduate of Princeton University, where he has taught American Studies.

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