National Sports Journalism Center

It is a sad truth that the world of sports media gets most interesting when things don’t quite turn out as they should.

Broadcasting flawless play-by-play analysis of a game is impressive, but sharp-eared critics have more fun with the stumbles of an Emmitt Smith or Chip Caray. Bob Costas is a gem, but when he and his NBC News cohorts spend an entire Sunday Night Football game extolling the virtues of a new, billion-dollar stadium, guess what gets dinged in the next-day media column?

This is my ham-handed way of explaining the list coming your way in this space.

Because my roster of the most compelling sports media stories of 2009 isn’t so much about triumph and achievement as it is about drama, controversy, the shattering of old paradigms and the building of new ones.

Sports media, like everything else, is transforming before our eyes, thanks to a heady mix of new technology and attitudes – some a welcome advancement, others not so much. Since I have only been writing this column since September, forgive me if I miss something that deserves a space.

But isn’t that the fun of these lists, anyway? So feel free to start a spicy, holiday-week debate knocking around My Most Compelling Sports Media Stories of 2009:

*Number 1: Tiger Woods – This athlete of the decade had the misfortune of starring in the sports media story of this young millennium – an ugly symbol that the rules of sports reporting have changed forever. In a perfect world, perhaps Wood’s extra-marital dalliances wouldn’t have much impact on his sports career. But his dominance of headlines for a solid month has proven there is too much reputation and attention for hungry media platforms to be made exposing the sordid private life of a superstar. Sports journalism traditionalists may insist this was a story they shouldn’t cover, but having such extensive philandering exposed from such a widely-praised athlete by gossip outlets makes sports journalists look like patsies at best and willing enablers at worst.

Number 2: Brett Favre stars in cable’s most-watched TV show ever – As TV audiences fracture and diminish, live sports has become the last expression of television as social gathering place. And no sports event since the Super Bowl drew attention like Favre’s amazing October 5 return to play against his old team, attracting nearly 22 million people to watch him lead the Minnesota Vikings to a 30-23 victory over the Green Bay Packers on ESPN’s Monday Night Football. Beyond proof that an old-dog quarterback can still sting the youngbloods, it was also proof that TV can still be a mass medium – when it offers something the masses actually want to see.

Number 3: Football ratings go through the roof – Forget about the digital TV switchover, fights between cable systems over the NFL Network and the NFL’s dunderheaded blackout rules. Televised football overcame all of that in 2009 to snare record ratings for ESPN’s Heisman trophy coverage, Monday Night Football telecasts, NBC Sunday Night Football, and NFL broadcasts on CBS and Fox. This year, NBC broadcast the most-watched Super Bowl in history, with 98.7-million viewers and nine of the 10 top-rated TV broadcasts of 2009 were football-related. This was trend so big, I needed two slots to tell it all.

Number 4: Erin Andrews scandal forces sports world to reconsider sex and sexism in sports – No, there is nothing that justifies tracking down a famous young woman and videotaping her nude without her knowledge in her hotel room. But the sports media world had to ask itself some tough questions about the way female sideline reporters are sometimes objectified – often in the name of higher Web traffic – when the videos of ESPN sideline reporter Andrews hit the Internet early this year.

Number 5: John Madden retires – Yeah, he seemed a faded giant in his later years, too closely resembling mimic Frank Caliendo’s rambling routines than seemed comfortable. But no one nailed the art of play-by-play like Madden in his prime, turning the most intricate strategies into nail-biting entertainment for legion of football fans. By his retirement in April, he was a broadcast legend, with a shelf full of Emmys and a boatload of enduring catchphrases. Good as successor Cris Collinsworth is, nobody’s going to pay him to host Saturday Night Live or star in a U2 video.

Number 6: ESPN goes local – Localized Web sites ESPN established this year for Chicago, Boston, Dallas and Los Angeles have done more than provide new gigs for underpaid print sportswriters. They have challenged local newspaper and TV sports reporters by going after the one thing ESPN couldn’t provide their audience – in-depth local sports coverage. How local outlets respond may determine whether ESPN controls even more of the sports news you receive every day.

Number 7: Michael Vick returns – He served 18 months in jail and lost millions after his prosecution on charges of running a dogfighting ring. So when Vick returned to the NFL in August with the Philadelphia Eagles, the media strategy unfolded with the precision of a military campaign – from his public mentorship by widely-admired ex-coach Tony Dungy, to the obligatory 60 Minutes interview and a press conference to announce his job with the Eagles and absorb some more media outrage. That he hasn’t set the NFL on fire like comeback king Favre may provide a bitter resolution for a player some fans still insist was treated unfairly by media coverage.

Number 8: Comcast positioned to create ESPN rival – No one really knows what they have planned yet, but cable giant Comcast’s blockbuster deal to gain a controlling interest in NBC Universal puts them in control of a wide array of TV sports outlets. With everything from Versus and The Golf Channel to NBC Sports, Sunday Night Football, the G4 channel and Olympics coverage under the same banner, building a sports empire to rival ESPN would seem a natural move.

Number 9: Ex-football player Nick Schuyler describes death of three fellow athletes at sea – This probably struck me more because it happened in my Florida backyard. But the disappearance of former University of South Florida football player Schuyler in the Gulf of Mexico became a major sports story when reporters realized the group also included Oakland Raiders linebacker Marquis Cooper, NFL free agent Corey Smith and former USF football player Will Bleakley. Though the media world descended on him when he was found clinging to their capsized boat, Schuyler told his story once to HBO’s Real Sports, avoiding tabloid media for an outlet he thought might handle the story sensitively.

Number 10: Chip Caray leaves TBS – Everybody from the New York Post to the New York Times took Caray to task for obvious errors in his play by play baseball coverage, from misstating plays to fumbling statistics. The son of longtime TBS voice Skip Caray and grandson of legendary Chicago Cubs announcer Harry Caray eventually parted ways with TBS in November, seemingly a casualty of widespread fan and media blowback. But hold on: Fox Sports South and SportsSouth announced Monday Carey will call Atlanta Braves games in 2010, working about 105 contests next season. Here’s hoping he’s learned a bit from the media shellacking he took this year.