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The Last Dance: A Clinic in Michael Jordan’s Image Control

“Guest columnist Jay Mariotti says The Last Dance is presenting Michael Jordan’s story exactly how Jordan wants it perceived.”

Jay Mariotti

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Even as a rookie filmmaker, Michael Jordan is forever the badass dictator, controlling “The Last Dance’’ like a mash-up of Craig Ehlo, Bryon Russell, Jerry Krause, Steve Kerr’s chin, Reggie Miller’s eyeball and Isiah Thomas’ feelings. The 10-part documentary series finally addressed one of Jordan’s dirty deeds, his gambling missteps with various creeps and cocaine dealers, yet somehow, hints of an all-time American scandal were spun Sunday night into a profile in perseverance and a triumph over unscrupulous media.

“A hobby,’’ Jordan called it, never mind that the IRS found his $57,000 check in the account of a convicted drug trafficker and three checks totaling $108,000 were discovered in the briefcase of a murdered bail bondsman.

“Michael was betting on his golf game. But given Michael’s earnings, it never reached epic crisis levels in my belief,’’ said David Stern, then the NBA commissioner, who said he dismissed a possible gambling problem because Jordan’s wealth justified the extravagant amounts he was betting.

And this from Phil Jackson, who suggested criticism of Jordan’s infamous gambling trip to Atlantic City and other accusatory stories inspired the Chicago Bulls to their third NBA championship: “Respond, he did.’’

As always, Jordan has slayed another challenge. He owns this production the way he owned sports and Planet Earth at the close of the 20th century. The badass smirks as he clutches the ball, waves it in the faces of mesmerized millions, peeks in at co-conspirator Scottie Pippen, allows superfreak Dennis Rodman his load management, lends a respectful ear to Jackson, imparts a master’s wisdom to Kobe Bryant, conquers popular culture and sneaker commerce, and, in the end, toys once again with every obstacle, real and imagined. And when the series wraps in two weeks, he will have taken that ball, soared through the mob like Jumpman himself and slammed his honed legacy into the grills of LeBron James — who foolishly anointed himself “the greatest player of all time’’ in 2018 — and an ignorant cult of LeBron-obsessed, recency-biased millennials and Gen Z-ers who’d buried Jordan as some cobwebbed myth.

The man has crushed all else. Why wouldn’t he take over Hollywood, too, not only controlling the narrative but enhancing it forevermore?

It should be clear now that “The Last Dance’’ — as approved, influenced, shape-shifted and executive produced by his Jump 23 company — is designed to maximize Jordan’s grandeur, minimize his flaws and leave no doubt about historical basketball supremacy. Because only he would survive with barely a smudge when, in the fifth episode, he defended his aversion to political commentary thusly: “I never thought of myself as an activist. I thought of myself as a basketball player.” Jim Brown, a vocal critic of Jordan, would have provided a thoughtful counterpoint. Colin Kaepernick, too. Jordan has already succeeded, gloriously, in presenting his story as he wants it perceived. If Jordan didn’t brow-beat director Jason Hehir into exquisitely sculpting every nanosecond of the film, then his trusted business advisors, Estee Portnoy and Curtis Polk, have served as obedient gate-keepers for the first six episodes. He really should add his byline: “The Last Dance, by Michael Jordan.’’

And don’t expect revelations in the final four shows, either, now that Hehir has pleased all parties: presenting the gambling subject in a way that satisfies Jordan and the NBA and answers media who thought the angle would be played down. Yet to be tackled is his father’s murder, which came amid the gambling stories and Stern’s investigation, a succession of events that rattled the land in the still-murky haze of 1993. The director could have broken new ground by interviewing Daniel Andre Green and Larry Demery, convicted of murdering James Jordan Sr. that July. We’ll likely only hear Jordan’s take and NBA-friendly comments with no attempt at definitive truth-telling.

See, none of the principles invested in “The Last Dance’’ — from Jordan to NBA Entertainment to ESPN — is interested in any lasting result beyond the advancement of the Jordan legend for posterity. Of course, he wouldn’t be participating without complete say-so over the content, no matter how much Hehir raves about access and his willingness to answer any and all questions. Jordan’s aim is to celebrate himself without warts. This drew the wrath of the acclaimed American documentarian, Ken Burns, who has refused to watch and told the Wall Street Journal that Jordan’s editorial influence has tilted the series into a journalistic sham.

“If you are there influencing the very fact of it getting made, it means that certain aspects that you don’t necessarily want in aren’t going to be in, period,’’ Burns said. “And that’s not the way you do good journalism … and it’s certainly not the way you do good history, my business.”

To which Jordan surely chuckled. Typically, he’s just trying to win the game — the documentary. Though he’ll never admit it, his purpose within the process is to win the Greatest Ever debate, as engaged by James, by beating LeBron at his own game: movie-making. Let’s not forget when Jordan decided to dust off and release footage of the Bulls’ final title, from the 1997-98 season, and present it to a new generation: the day after James and the Cleveland Cavaliers overcame a 1-3 deficit in the 2016 Finals to upend the Golden State Warriors. The world was buzzing about LeBron as the G.O.A.T. and forgetting about Jordan, who had been mostly media-reclusive while suffering as owner of a nondescript franchise in Charlotte. As quickly as he said yes to the pitch of producer Mike Tollin, Jordan was armed with the leverage to circumvent All Things LeBron and make his own documentary in his own words, effectively bringing his pre-eminence back to life in a matter of five weekends in 2020.

Notice how “The Last Dance’’ has yet to include any contribution from James. The series has featured basketball greats who have made Jordan’s case for him, augmented by video evidence that encompasses 500 minutes. As Magic Johnson put it, “Young fans that never got to see Michael play now understand why he’s the (G.O.A.T.) of basketball. For me? Michael Jordan, Michael Jackson and Beyonce are the three greatest entertainers of my lifetime, and you probably could throw Muhammad Ali in there.’’ Jordan never has involved himself in the James debate, preferring to take the high road. As a Chicago columnist, I cornered him in a United Center hallway during James’ rookie NBA season, just after Jordan had retired from the Washington Wizards, and asked what he thought of LeBron.

“What do you think?’’ said Jordan, refusing to go there.

As recently as four months ago in Paris, Jordan shrugged off a James-as-G.O.A.T. question before a Hornets-Milwaukee Bucks game, saying, “What was the name again? Pardon me, who? Oh, is he playing? I just think we’re playing in different eras. He’s an unbelievable player, one of the best players in the world, if not the best. … I’m a fan of his. I love watching him play. But when you start the (Jordan-James) comparisons, I think it is what it is. It’s just a standup measurement. I take it with a grain of salt.’’

It doesn’t require passive-aggressive expertise to translate. Jordan knew “The Last Dance’’ was coming. He also knew what James had said 13 months earlier in his own production, “More Than An Athlete,’’ claiming his title in his native northeast Ohio put him over the top. “That one right there made me the greatest player of all time. That’s what I felt,” James said. “I was super-super ecstatic to win one for Cleveland because of the 52-year (title) drought. The first wave of emotion was how everyone saw me crying, like that was all 52 years of everything in sports going on in Cleveland. And after I stopped, i was like, `Shush, that one right there made you the greatest player of all time.’ … Everybody was just talking about how (the Warriors) were the greatest team of all time, like, it was the greatest team ever assembled. For us to come back the way we came back in that fashion, I was, like, ‘You did something special.’ ‘’

Special? Yes. Transcendent in the tiresome greatest-ever debate? No, not when James has lost six times in the Finals and not always maximized the talent around him as Jordan did. LeBron, who tends to whine at times, might claim Jordan has the advantage of a captive global documentary audience during a pandemic. I would suggest apologies are in order, along with an acknowledgment that James’ upcoming Space Jam project — assuming we’ve ever allowed to enter a theater without a Hazmat suit — was a ripoff of Jordan. As was the day he decided to wear No. 23. (My God, now I’m partaking in the debate.).

The docu-series also has succeeded in using interview subjects who mostly buff Jordan like one of his $200,000 sports cars. To his credit, he didn’t nix Sam Smith, a longtime Bulls beat writer (and operative of Bulls owner Jerry Reinsdorf) who wrote a seminal book, “The Jordan Rules,’’ that painted Jordan as a tyrant and presented a less-than-glowing look as he was rising as a global phenomenon. Sunday provided a glimpse into media-related dysfunction surrounding the team; Jordan said teammate Horace Grant was a prime Smith source for the book, which Grant denied while raising suspicions that Jackson and Reinsdorf provided leaks to Smith. Media politics were a central part of the story in that some who covered the team took sides — Smith was embedded separately with Reinsdorf and Jackson, prominent national columnist Michael Wilbon was a Jordan guy, and Chicago-based Rick Telander was a lightly opinionated bystander who wrote as-told-to-pieces for ESPN The Magazine from the mouths of Jackson and Jordan. Journalism students, if any still exist, are reminded to remain independent and avoid appearances of trying to make money by climbing into bed with the people you’re covering.

So far in the docu-series, no media person has been permitted to make Jordan look even remotely bad. Hehir chose to use Barack Obama to effectively smooth over the political controversy when Jordan uttered, “Republicans buy sneakers, too.” Rather than presenting a Detroit side of his still-fiery feud with Thomas and the Bad Boys Pistons, Hehir allowed Jordan to condemn Thomas — “There’s no way you can convince me he wasn’t an a—hole’’ — while showing 1991 video of Thomas and teammate Bill Laimbeer refusing to shake hands with the victorious Bulls. This gentle coverage of Jordan’s controversies has led influential basketball journalists of the time to wonder why they were omitted from the docu-series. Sports Illustrated’s Jack McCallum was front and center as an objective chronicler of Jordan dynasty. Where is he?

“I would be less than honest if I said it didn’t matter to me that I wasn’t interviewed for the doc, though over the years I have pontificated about Jordan and others of his generation on outlets too numerous to count,’’ McCallum wrote recently on the SI site. “I was scheduled on at least four occasions to talk on camera, but each was called off, one of them because, I was told, `We have to do J.T.’ ‘’

Justin Timberlake.

And where is Peter Vecsey? His Bulls coverage was must-read material during a stretch when he was the ultimate NBA insider, dishing scoops in print and on NBC’s weekly coverage. “ESPN never called me about `The Last Dance,’ ” he told the Boston Globe. “It’s absolutely amazing to me that they could be that stupid. I had so many inside stories that were printed that they are not even going to address it. It’s amazing. They interviewed Sam Smith; they couldn’t avoid that. I was involved in all of that stuff.”

We’re also left to ask if Reinsdorf was allowed editorial approval, or if he leaned on his high-placed connections to protect him. As controlling owner, he had the power throughout the ‘90s to stop the never-ending madness — how Pippen and Jackson were woefully underpaid by market standards; how Jordan had to play out an eight-year, $24 million contract before he was paid his worth; Krause’s vengeance-fueled whim to run off Jackson and prematurely break up the Bulls; the decade-long tensions pitting Jordan, Pippen and Jackson against Krause. But Krause, who passed away in 2017 and unfairly can’t present rebuttals, is painted at every turn as the lone villain, with Reinsdorf allowed by Hehir to sit back as a narrator of the dysfunction rather than one who could have stopped it. As TNT analyst and former Jordan confidante Charles Barkley pointed out on Dan Patrick’s radio show, Reinsdorf was the owner, wasn’t he?

“(Krause) didn’t take that apart — anyone who thinks that is a fool. That thing was orchestrated by Jerry Reinsdorf,’’ Barkley said. “The notion that that little man broke up the Bulls is asinine and absurd … Jerry Reinsdorf broke up the Bulls ‘cause he didn’t want to pay anybody. You think about this — he let Horace Grant go because he became a free agent and they didn’t want to pay him. They probably don’t want to talk about that in the documentary. That’s why he went to Orlando. He only paid Michael the last two years. When he had Michael at a bargain, he was happy. To try to make Krause the bad guy, I thought that was very disingenuous of Reinsdorf.’’

And why wouldn’t Jordan use the docu-series to crucify Reinsdorf, as he has done in conversations with a few media people, myself included? Oh, maybe because Jordan, as an NBA owner, prefers to smear Krause and protect a fellow owner who always could exact stealth revenge on Jordan in league circles. Even at 84, Reinsdorf keeps secrets. He would have been a much better private investigator than sports owner; beyond Jordan’s six titles, of which any owner could have rode the coattails, Reinsdorf’s dual ownership of the Bulls and Chicago White Sox has produced only one championship in almost eight decades of collective ownership.

Hehir won’t be winning an Oscar, not that he deserves one. Technically, “The Last Dance’’ isn’t eligible, says Dawn Hudson, CEO of The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. “If you meet our requirements for being a movie — you have been scheduled for a theatrical release, which the ESPN series is not, and you are presented in one sitting, which the ESPN series is not — then you are eligible for the Oscars. But that doesn’t apply to this series, even though it’s terrific content,’’ Hudson told the Hollywood Reporter. With Jordan running the show, “The Last Dance’’ can’t possibly have the same gravitas of ESPN’s Oscar-winning “O.J.: Made In America,’’ the five-part miniseries crafted by director Ezra Edelman that didn’t have O.J. Simpson as a creative overlord.

Gambling? There will be no investigative attempt to ask if the murder had anything to do with Jordan’s wagers and seedy North Carolina connections — including Slim Bouler, the cocaine trafficker who took Jordan’s money on golf courses. Another Jordan image cop, longtime agent David Falk, told WFAN Radio: “At the end of the day, Michael was almost Teflon. There’s very few things people criticized him for. The gambling thing was it. He loves to gamble. He’s an extremely competitive guy. If he loses $150,000 playing golf, big freaking deal. If I told him tomorrow, `Hey, I’ve got an appearance for you for five minutes for $150,000,’ he’d laugh at me. If it was $1.5 million, he wouldn’t do it. So yes, he lost money in gambling and it sort of had a little bit of a black eye for five minutes. He apologized and the thing went away. But any of these Oliver Stone conspiracy theories that somehow it pushed him out of basketball were ridiculous.”

Not so ridiculous: the possibility that Jordan, who was wagering obscene sums and was exposed by former San Diego sports executive Richard Esquinas in a book (“Michael & Me: Our Gambling Addiction — My Cry For Help!’’), was vulnerable to betting-line extortion if he was down a few million on another bad golfing day. Esquinas was the former president and general manager of the San Diego Sports Arena. Did it occur to Stern that the NBA Clippers, before moving to Los Angeles, played home games in that arena? That Esquinas had a direct connection to the league? Jordan denies betting on NBA games — “I only bet on myself,’’ he said, which is what Pete Rose said. The league constitution mandates a fine, suspension or expulsion for “any player who, directly or indirectly, wagers money or anything of value on the outcome of any game played by a team in the NBA.’’ But did the league truly conduct a legitimate and comprehensive investigation of Jordan in the summer of ’93, when he was threatening to retire because of the probe? And shouldn’t the probe, headed by former federal judge Frederick Lacey, have intensified after the murder of Jordan’s father? Wasn’t it peculiar when the NBA closed the probe only two days after Jordan announced he was leaving the Bulls? And why was Stern, before his 2019 death, so defensive and dismissive about Jordan’s gambling “hobby’’ instead of emphasizing public transparency, especially as baseball was coming off Rose’s gambling scandal?

We won’t be getting more answers in the 10-part docu-series, even after 100-plus subjects were interviewed. “I found out later what kind of people I was dealing with. But the act of gambling, I didn’t do anything wrong,’’ Jordan said.

So this could be the biggest of all his victories, in a sense. He indeed has achieved Rare Air, somehow floating above the scrutiny of society’s biggest sports greats and celebrities. Jordan knows his audience wants celebration, not revelation. He also knows he’s lucky: The pandemic has created a hunger for the upbeat. Witness the lines Sunday inside and outside an Atlanta mall, where people waited to buy his newest sneaker model — “Air Jordan 5 Fire Red 2020’’ — that sold out outline. Were they even thinking about Covid-19?

The most majestic athlete of our lives finds himself nearing another fourth quarter, armed with the usual untouchable lead. He could relegate the final four episodes to the cutting-room floor and still know he has won again. Michael Jordan didn’t have to spend millions of dollars or plot deep strategies to control his image.

He just called ESPN.

Jay Mariotti, called “the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ is the host of “Unmuted,’’ a frequent podcast about sports and life (Apple, Podbean, etc.). He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and radio host. As a Los Angeles resident, he gravitated by osmosis to movie projects. He appears Wednesday nights on The Dino Costa Show, a segment billed as “The Rawest Hour in Sports Broadcasting.’’

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How to Help Your Clients with Low Website Conversions

Don’t assume there isn’t enough traffic; focus on optimizing user engagement once visitors arrive on the site.

Jeff Caves

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Graphic for how to increase website conversions
Credit: WPDesigner.Biz

Are your clients dealing with low website conversions? Whenever a marketing campaign is run, and the goal is to convert website visitors into leads, the temptation is to blame low traffic, amongst other issues, for low form fills or appointments being generated.  Just spend more money, you may think! Sometimes, you must look at at least four other potential issues to tackle poor conversion rates. Here are some actionable steps using the IT services industry to increase website conversions.

IT Solutions specializes in providing products, services, or solutions related to technology, particularly in areas such as software development, hardware sales, IT consulting, cybersecurity, cloud computing, networking, and digital transformations. They faced challenges with their website conversions. Despite driving substantial traffic through Google Ads and other SEO tactics, they struggled to convert website visitors into form fills for appointment requests. A 2% to 5% conversion rate could be considered reasonable. Of course, conversion rates can vary based on various factors, such as the competitiveness of the local market, the quality of the website (and radio stations help most to fix that) and its user experience, the effectiveness of marketing campaigns, and the reputation and offerings of the IT solutions business. Focusing on improving the quality of leads and providing exceptional customer service can be just as crucial as achieving high conversion rates. Don’t blame EVERYTHING on the marketing tactics! 

The Diagnosis

Upon thorough analysis, several critical issues were identified with IT Solutions’ website:

1. High Bounce Rate: Nobody was checking out the business. If 70% or more of website visitors only visit the landing page, that is an issue.  It could be slow loading times, irrelevant content, poor user experience, or unclear calls-to-action that prevent them from wanting to know more about IT Solutions. You can check the bounce rate on the Google Analytics page for the website in the left-hand sidebar, click on “Behavior” to expand the menu, then click on “Site Content,” and finally, click on “Landing Pages.” You’ll see a list of landing pages and their respective bounce rates.

2. Complex Navigation: It was hard to move around the website to find relevant information about IT services, and it was unclear who they were initiating contact with and for what purpose.

3. Unclear Calls-to-Action (CTAs): The website lacked clear and compelling CTAs guiding visitors toward requesting an appointment. Simply stating “click here for an appointment” is like asking for a meeting whenever or without establishing value. Here are 28 CTAs for free.

4. Lengthy Forms: The appointment forms were long, without qualifying information, and requested excessive information upfront, deterring potential leads from completing them.

Action Plan

1. Optimize Landing Pages:

   – Redo high-traffic landing pages with clear messaging and compelling CTAs.

   – Showcase IT Solutions’ services as benefits, making it easier for users to request appointments, thereby increasing user engagement and conversions.

2. Simplify Navigation:

   – Reorganize the menu and add more action-oriented links.

   – Provide additional options for users to access relevant information, such as “Get a free IT Solutions 15-point checkup NOW” and “Take this 5-question survey to diagnose your IT issues,” motivating them to book appointments.

3. Enhance CTAs:

   – Utilize concise and persuasive messaging throughout the website.

   – Encourage visitors to take action, whether requesting a free download about “5 things you can do to solve your IT issues on your own” or “get a free pizza for booking an appointment.”

4. Improve the Form Fill:

   – Add a further line about the number of employees who qualify for incoming leads.

   – Highlight the value of leads based on company size, prioritizing forms with higher potential impact.

Review landing pages, navigation, CTAs, and form experience to address website conversion issues. Don’t assume there isn’t enough traffic; focus on optimizing user engagement once visitors arrive on the site.

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‘NHL on TNT’ Gives Hockey Fans the ‘NBA on TNT’ Treatment

Watching Albert and Olczyk call a hockey game is like watching Picasso paint and da Vinci sculpt. They are masters of their respective crafts.

John Molori

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NHL on TNT studio

Let’s play a little word association, sports media style. If I say TNT, what is your response? Chances are it will be a three-letter abbreviation of your own, namely, NBA. Over the years, TNT has built a reputation as arguably the premiere network to telecast the National Basketball Association.

The NBA on TNT pregame and halftime shows have become the gold standard with stars like Ernie Johnson, Jr., Kenny Smith, Charles Barkley, and Shaquille O’Neal. Still, it’s not just this quartet of roundball royalty that has fortified TNT’s hoops coverage.

The rep was also built on tremendous play-by-play announcers like Bob Neal and Kevin Harlan, color analysts like Doug Collins and Reggie Miller, and courtside reporters like the late Craig Sager and current sideline star Allie LaForce.

Indeed, TNT and the NBA have become synonymous, but I have some news for you. This network is not just about professional basketball. This past week I went off the grid with TNT looking at their in-game and studio coverage of the NHL.

On March 24, the NHL on TNT provided coverage of the Pittsburgh Penguins at Colorado Avalanche matchup. Kenny Albert did play-by-play with Eddie Olczyk on color. Albert is not as noted as his legendary broadcasting father Marv Albert, but he has certainly staked his claim as one of the best in the business – able to cross over to multiple sports with equal aplomb.

Hockey is a strong suit for Albert. His rat-tat-tat, drama-building style draws viewers in and keeps us on the edge of our seats. Similarly, Olczyk is one of the top four or five NHL game analysts in the business. His style is understated, providing calm and clear analysis of key plays. They work really well together.

Albert eschews any kind of hackneyed and trite catch phrases for his goal calls. An emphatic, “He shoots and scores!” is plenty enough.

Hockey is a different beast when it comes to play-by-play. Unlike basketball, baseball, football, or even soccer and tennis, there is a minimum of breaks in the action. With hockey, a play-by-play announcer has to know the names of the players like he or she knows her kids’ names.

To me, it is the hardest sport for play-by-play and equally difficult for a color analyst. In basketball, after a team scores, the play-by-play announcer will keep silent and give the color analyst time to talk until the play crosses center court. In baseball and football, there is ample room for commentary.

Hockey does not offer such space, but Olczyk gets the most out of the minimal amount of time. Watching Albert and Olczyk call a hockey game is like watching Picasso paint and da Vinci sculpt. They are masters of their respective crafts.

Coming back from a break in the game, Albert and Olczyk provided on air commentary and then tossed to ice level reporter Brian Boucher who has grown into a tremendous asset to the TNT broadcasts. Boucher provided real talk about Colorado’s objectives of staying on top of their division and vying for the top seed in the Western Conference.

The Penguins, squarely in a rebuilding year having dumped talent at the NHL trade deadline, surprisingly jumped out to a 2–0 lead in this game, and the TNT between periods studio crew was all over it. The excellent Liam McHugh hosted alongside Colby Armstrong, Anson Carter, and Keith Yandle.

Armstrong was especially entertaining. With Pittsburgh outshooting the Avs 16-4, Armstrong noted that it’s the best he’s seen Pittsburgh play in a long time. His reasoning was that teams get geared up for playing Colorado even if it’s out of fear. Great stuff.

Both teams tallied two goals in the second period giving Pittsburgh a 4-2 lead heading into the final frame. When Colorado’s Nathan MacKinnon set up Jonathan Drouin for a goal to make it 4-3, Albert and Olczyk showed their strengths.

Albert called the pass from MacKinnon and one-timer goal from Drouin, and immediately noted that MacKinnon now had a point in all 34 of Colorado’s home games this season. On the goal replay, Olczyk showed how the play developed pointing out how McKinnon allowed Pittsburgh’s Evgenii Malkin to come in close before making the past to Drouin.

The TNT production team then showed a graphic displaying that McKinnon is now second all-time in longest home points streaks trailing only Wayne Gretzky. This was a sublime sequence of symmetry between talent and technicians like a songwriter, musician, and singer creating beautiful music.

What was supposed to be a blowout win for Colorado had now become a hockey barn burner, and the TNT crew was up to the task. Every goal and key play was followed up with replays from multiple angles showing the genesis of the action.

TNT has certainly taken to the velocity of the hockey broadcast with movement that challenges directors, graphics professionals, and videographers.

When there were breaks in this non-stop action, Olczyk was at his best. No hockey analyst draws on his experience as a player and explains that experience better to viewers. The TNT broadcast also lets Boucher freewheel and join in the flow of discussion without having to be introduced.

TNT does not merely rely on the traditional wide shot of the entire rink. We see close-up shots of each goaltender after a great save and the sweat of players on the bench or in the penalty box.

When McKinnon tied the game at 4-4 with 4:38 left in the third period, we got a series of tremendous crowd shots showing the Colorado fans going absolutely berserk. The sage Albert and Olczyk wisely remained quiet for several seconds, letting the cheers do the talking.

When Drouin scored the game winner at 4:06 of overtime, Albert exercised controlled enthusiasm, raising his voice on the call of the goal, but not becoming the show and overshadowing the play itself. He is definitely in the mold of Dan Kelly, Gary Thorne, and Sean McDonough, announcers who enhance but do not supersede the game.

Putting a cherry on top of this hockey Sunday, TNT showed a graphic that the Avalanche now led the NHL in comeback wins this season with 25 and that they were riding a 9-game winning streak. In analyzing the goal, Olczyk opined that the altitude of playing in Colorado was prevalent as the Penguins seemed to tire as the game progressed – really interesting insight.

In the postgame show, Anson Carter made a great point that the chemistry between Drouin and MacKinnon stems from the fact that they have been playing together going back to junior hockey. McKinnon joined in from the arena for a postgame interview. The analysts asked solid questions and even did a funny MVP chant together as the interview ended.

The NHL on TNT takes no back seat to its elder NBA sister. The broadcast provides viewers with flash, dash, and serious hockey talk from every angle – in studio, from the broadcast booth, and on the ice.

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Kim Mulkey Now Has Everyone Anticipating Washington Post Story

I can’t imagine what headline, under normal circumstances, the Washington Post would have to put on a Kim Mulkey story to make me want to read it.

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photo of LSU women's college basketball coach Kim Mulkey
Credit: Dailymail.co.uk

The Washington Post, you might’ve heard, has a story coming out about controversial LSU women’s basketball coach Kim Mulkey. The reason you might’ve heard is because Kim Mulkey told you. The Tigers coach read a fiery prepared statement just before her team started the Women’s NCAA Tournament. In the statement, Mulkey threatened to sue The Post for defamation before the first word was even published.

Now, I’ve never run a public relations firm but that did not seem like a good idea. The Washington Post story on Mulkey is one of the bigger stories in sports right now and nobody even knows what’s in it. The reason the story, apparently unflattering to Mulkey, is even on anyone’s radar screen is Mulkey herself.

It all started with an innocuous social media post by Sports Illustrated’s Pat Forde right in the middle of the most anticipated two days in sports, the NCAA Tournament Round of 64. On his X account, Forde posted: “Hearing some buzz about a big Washington Post story in the works on LSU women’s hoops coach Kim Mulkey, potentially next week. Wagons being circled, etc.”

You know what generally will go unnoticed at 4:00 on the first Friday of the NCAA Tournament? A post on X about a women’s basketball coach. But don’t tell Mulkey, she saw Forde’s post and decided to fight fire with nuclear weaponry. The result: the average person like me now is really interested in what has Mulkey so incensed. By “average person like me” I mean that I can’t imagine what headline, under normal circumstances, the Washington Post would have to put on a Kim Mulkey story to make me want to read it. Maybe:

“LSU Women’s Coach Discovers Ark of the Covenant”

Or:

“Mulkey Reveals True JFK Assassin(s)”

Perhaps:

“Famed Women’s Basketball Coach Reveals the Mystery Behind Slow Drivers in the Left Lane”

Literally any of those catch my attention more than whatever will likely be the Washington Post headline about Mulkey. But now Mulkey is “Mad as Hell and is not going to take this anymore” so I now have an interest I would never before have had in this story. It has been fascinating to watch the online speculation about the subject of the article and all we really know, as of now, is that it will be written by Kent Babb. This is a dream come true for Babb; he writes an article that is, presumably, not flattering about Kim Mulkey and, before it is even published, she gives the article the greatest commercial anyone could give it. Babb couldn’t have entered into a business agreement with Mulkey and had this turn out better for him.

For those who don’t follow Babb, he is a former NFL reporter who now is an award-winning writer for the Washington Post. In his 14 years with The Post, he has written sports features and authored a couple of books. One of those sports features stories was a deep dive into what he viewed as a large inequity in the level of pay for LSU head football coach Brian Kelly and his LSU players. It is this piece Mulkey described as a “hit piece” and, based on that piece, referred to Babb as a “sleazy reporter.” Babb, and many others, resented the fact his story was labeled as a hit piece. In fact, Babb essentially confirmed he was the author Mulkey was referencing when he shared the original article on X with the comment: “Hit piece?”

Whether a printed piece or a recorded interview, I can’t imagine a better promotion for it than the subject of the interview threatening a libel/slander lawsuit, especially before it is even released. That simply screams “This piece is salacious!!” Also, libel and slander suits get settled all the time, right? Of course they don’t, they seem to never even get filed. That little thing called discovery is a scary thing for most public figures.

The NCAA Tournament has been very entertaining, and I think the Sweet 16 and Elite Eight will be terrific. For only the fifth time ever, the top two seeds have advanced to the third round which sets up for a remarkable weekend. For me, I guess it will now include a Washington Post article, not a sentence I’d normally say.

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