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Masks Up, Ratings Down

“The NFL’s first COVID-19 crisis raises doubt about the efficacy of protocols and whether the pro and college seasons can be completed, while Jimmy Butler smack-talks LeBron in an NBA Finals that needs viewers.”

Jay Mariotti

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Call it Coronakarma. In the same week COVID-19 hospitalized President Trump — just hours after he mocked the size of Joe Biden’s mask, said “the end of the pandemic is in sight’’ and continued a year-long delusional dance challenged in U.S. presidential history only by Frank Underwood in “House Of Cards’’ (and he wasn’t real) — how fitting to see the NFL slammed by its own virus crisis.     

A coincidence, it is not. In the league’s hellbent quest to snag as much of a $17 billion pot as possible this season, commissioner Roger Goodell and the owners embraced Trump’s urging that major sports play on through the pandemic, even if some of those owners loathe the president. As COVID continues to rage for a ninth month in America, what did all of these men gain from an abundance of hubris, ignorance and hypocrisy?

Grim answer: A place in medical limbo and potential American infamy, with the most powerful person in the free world and the most prominent sports enterprise in the Western Hemisphere weakened because neither treated the pandemic with appropriate concern. Trump has been tethered to his room in Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, at the mercy of antibody cocktails, experimental treatments, steroids and whatever else they pump into his 74-year-old, somewhat obese body.

The NFL? Goodell has the freedom to apply common epidemiological sense and call an immediate timeout on the season, which would allow the league and its franchises to reassess protocols and make sure they know what they’re doing while risking the health of thousands. But that’s not how football people roll, even as players and coaches eschew masks, violate policies and make a daily mockery of a virus that has killed almost 210,000 Americans. The league marches on, despite evidence that sports playing inside restrictive environments — NBA, NHL — can avoid COVID-disruptions and complete seasons, while football on the professional and college levels is encountering the same perils outside a Bubble that pummeled Major League Baseball. The college game recklessly marches on, too, as fans foolishly allowed into stadiums on COVID-ravaged campuses are clustering without masks and social distancing, forcing SMU police to clear the entire student section Saturday and the SEC to ponder an autumn of outbreaks in the stands, which conceivably could spread to players.

People still don’t get it.

Until, you know, they GET it.

The sports model on how to survive in a pandemic has been authored, for the most part, by none other than LeBron James. Assuming Game 3 was a momentary and embarrassing snooze and not a sign of more lethargy ahead, the Lakers remain comfortably positioned to win the NBA Finals, though they’ve allowed a hungry badass named Jimmy Butler a crack in the concrete door. Disgusted as he left the court before the buzzer — the loss to the undermanned Heat means two more days in the Bubble — James can’t allow himself to commit eight turnovers and let various teammates, including Anthony Davis, be no-shows again in Game 4. Otherwise, the “LeBron legacy’’ questions become loud and persistent; the Heat, after all, are without Bam Adebayo and Goran Dragic, leaving Butler to carry the night and mouth “trouble’’ to his Miami teammates in the closing seconds. As in, the Lakers are in trouble. They aren’t in trouble yet, but it makes for a more watchable series.

Butler, for instance, admitted to telling James, “You’re in trouble,’’ not long before James exited the court with 10 seconds left — not a good look, and one we’ve seen before in failure. Butler said he simply was responding to what LeBron told him earlier in the game. Observe how far Butler has come from humble beginnings, in life and basketball: He’s mouthing off to the King. “First of all, we’re not going to act like I’m just out there talking trash, because I’m not,’’ Butler said. “LeBron said it to me at the end of the first. That’s what happened. I just said it to him in the fourth quarter.’’

James took the high road, describing Butler as one of the game’s great competitors and someone he’ll miss when he retires from the sport. “I don’t feel like we’re concerned,’’ James said about a Lakers performance he deemed as “poor’’ Sunday night. “We know we can play a lot better. We have an opportunity to take a commanding lead Tuesday night.’’

And if they do, he’ll be one victory from an achievement more sweeping and impressive than finally claiming a title for Cleveland in 2016. For more than three months, James has stayed true to Bubble life, followed all the protocols, vigilantly fought racial injustice and police brutality, urged people to vote and vowed to win in Kobe Bryant’s memory while aiming for his fourth title. Shouldn’t everyone be taking notes in America, in sports?

Much of the country still refuses to grasp what’s happening, whether it’s a president who will return from the hospital and claim COVID really is the common flu or a league boss determined to navigate a season out of greed when Vegas odds don’t favor him. “We’re continuing to be vigilant, flexible and adaptable,’’ said Goodell, trotting out words he used in July when October demands much more urgency. In the space of days, the Tennessee Titans were shut down by a COVID outbreak of 20 cases while Cam Newton — one of the NFL’s biggest stories so far and a self-described “Superman’’ —  also tested positive for the virus. That quickly, the league was blindsided by an inescapable 2020 truth: Its expectation of completing the season, through the Super Bowl in February, can shrink to utter folly at any moment.

If there’s one certainty about this mindbleep of an infectious disease, it’s that anyone who thinks it’s a bunch of hooey soon will have his head or ass pressed against a toilet for days. The virus likely is determining the future leadership of this country. On a much lesser scale, it already has shot holes in the almighty NFL shield. Or, more to the point, COVID has popped at least four of Goodell’s “32 separate bubbles’’ before the regular season is a month old. When Newton’s positive test coincided with another positive test at the Chiefs facility, the league shifted Sunday’s hyped Chiefs-Patriots matchup to Monday night in Kansas City — assuming more tests don’t turn up positive. Cold reality is, the NFL schedule no longer can be written in anything but pencil. The two games postponed Sunday could be four games next week. Or seven next month.

Wrote Newton in a somber-faced Instagram selfie, which shows a mask worn improperly on his neck: “I will never question God’s reasoning; just will always respond with `Yes Lord!!’’’ I appreciate all the love, support, and WELL WISHES!! I will take this time to get healthy and self reflect on the other AMAZING THINGS THAT I SHOULD BE GRATEFUL FOR!!!’’

Brady, after throwing five touchdown passes Sunday to outduel Chargers rookie Justin Herbert, didn’t comment about the health status of his New England successor. It’s best he said nothing; Brady was the one flouting protocols by practicing without a mask at a Tampa public park. “We were told during training camp that this could happen, if you’re not diligent, you’re not careful,” Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger said. “I’m home-schooling my kids, we’re not having guests over at the house. You have to do those things if you want to play the games on Sundays.”

Sounding much like commissioner Rob Manfred when MLB was reeling from outbreaks, the NFL is pointing fingers. The problem, the league says, isn’t with the protocols; the failure lies in the protocols not being followed, which the league expects to find as representatives scour the Nashville landscape for clues. This as the league conducted a conference call with all teams concerning COVID “accountability, learnings and requirements.’’ What Goodell won’t admit, like Manfred, is that the NFL didn’t communicate COVID evils strongly enough from the season’s outset. Seven head coaches have failed to wear face masks on the sidelines, including two (Jon Gruden and Sean Payton) who contracted the virus, setting a poor example for the league and the U.S. population. Ravens coach John Harbaugh lowered his mask to argue with an official, spraying saliva droplets in the poor guy’s face. Last week, several Raiders players weren’t wearing masks or socially distancing during a charity event in Nevada. No amount of fines or threats of suspensions and docked draft picks seems to faze the men in uniform when in the heat of battle.

Leave us alone, they say. We’re busy.

“I understand that we’re all chasing perfection,” Harbaugh said. “We try to be as perfect as we can. It’s a pretty hard standard to hold other people to. But you try the best you can. That’s all I really have to say about it.”

Perfection? We’ll accept mask mediocrity at this stage.

All of which throws America into a deeper daze as it searches, in vain, for any semblance of normalcy in sports. Distracted by Trump’s illness and the many news channels smothering it, sports fans have tuned out the NBA Finals; Game 1 was the lowest-rated Finals game since 1994, when millions were busy watching O.J. Simpson in a white Bronco. At least baseball is playing its postseason in its customary month, but if viewership has taken a beating in previous autumns, how many will watch now? Ratings are undeniably down throughout the industry. And it’s not hard to explain.

The scope and grandeur of sports simply isn’t the same. It’s difficult to wrap oneself into a game when your team, even the Lakers or Stanley Cup champion Lightning, is in a Bubble with no fans or pomp. Or when you have no idea if a game will be postponed or how many missing players will dilute the experience. Or when the NFL’s biggest stories are Josh Allen and the 4-0 Bills, the Kevin Stefanski-revived Browns and the dismal Cowboys, who are worse under Mike McCarthy than they were under Jason Garrett. Or when college football actually is moving forward with a four-team playoff when ACC teams are playing 11 games, the SEC and Big 12 are playing 10 games, the Big Ten is playing nine and the Pac-12 is playing seven. At some point, the joy of having sports is interrupted by the jolt that sports is still very messed up and disjointed without fans in the arena and disposable energy across America. Even when Russell Wilson throws 16 TD passes in four games and leaves the stage to Aaron Rodgers and Patrick Mahomes, a delectable treat is shrouded in the 2020 haze.     

Though only a few realists wanted to hear it, football is the sport most vulnerable to the coronavirus. As I’ve said and written, ad nauseam, dozens of players and personnel on each team are perpetually in close contact — on lines of scrimmage during games and practices, at facilities, in locker rooms, on road trips in planes and hotels and dining rooms. The NFL has been administering daily COVID tests — and an outbreak happened anyway, with the Titans reporting positive tests for 10 players and 10 personnel members. That should sound alarms that the worst could be ahead. Exposed to the outside world every day, NFL and college teams are required to be extra-diligent when they return to their living quarters or, perhaps, wander into public restaurants and bars. For weeks, the NFL’s plan seemed to work. After the Titans’ outbreak, the most accomplished coach of his time, Bill Belichick, voiced pride in how the Patriots were eluding COVID issues. “We monitor everything every day. We don’t just do it when there’s a problem or something comes up somewhere else,’’ he said. “We do it on a daily basis and make everyone aware — because this is everybody. It’s not just players; it’s players and coaches and staff and everybody else. If we can do something better, then we talk to them about how we can do it better. So we try to monitor it the best we can, and we, I think, are pretty vigilant with all of us.”     

Until Newton was placed on the dreaded reserve/COVID-19 list. This forced the Patriots to take a game-day flight — two planes, 3 1/2 hours in the air — and turn to backups Brian Hoyer and Jarrett Stidham in a rushed reset Monday night. See how this already has altered competitive balance at the most important position in team sports and further discombobulated a schedule complicated by a Titans-Steelers postponement? It doesn’t require much imagination to see how the season could become a logistical entanglement; at least MLB, when it was bombarded by summer outbreaks, had time to shut down a team or two for weeks. The NFL doesn’t have such a luxury. As for the idea of sequestering everyone in hotels in home cities, the Players Association shut it down.     

Of course, there still is no exact science about how COVID is contracted and spreads. In the Titans’ case, multiple positive tests over several weeks seemed to take an eventual toll. In other cases, a player can catch it from a family member or child or simply by happenstance. On the college level, Notre Dame’s outbreak was linked to players and coaches sitting together for a team meal — dumb, dumb, dumb — and a player vomiting on the sideline. Such irresponsibility is a poor reflection on school leadership — namely the president, Red. John I. Jenkins, who was maskless when he attended the ceremony for Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Judge Amy Coney Barrett. Apologizing to students, Jenkins wrote in a letter: “I know many of you have read about the White House ceremony I recently attended. I write to express my regret for certain choices I made that day and for failing to lead as I should have.’’ Days later, after Trump saluted Notre Dame during a debacle of a presidential debate, Jenkins tested positive for the virus.     

If it can happen in Tennessee, if it can happen in South Bend, it can happen anywhere.     

The NFL insults us all by treating the virus like an ankle sprain and simply playing the game a night or two later. College football, with a power base in the Southeast, can be even more careless. The coach who slayed LSU last month, Mississippi State’s Mike Leach, hasn’t been wearing his facial covering as mandated by the SEC. “I tried to remember the best I could. Then I found myself talking all the time,’’ said Leach, who calls the team’s offensive plays. “So between me taking it down to talk, me lifting it up and it falling down on its own and me remembering to put it back up, I think there were a number of challenges there.”     

Greg Sankey, the SEC commissioner, responded with a two-page memo to coaches and warned of consequences. Leach responded with trademark sarcasm in a back-and-forth with the New York Times. “Do you ever find that pretty soon those things will start to smell bad, and all of a sudden, you’re going: `What’s that smell? What’s going on out there?’ No, there’s nothing going on out there. That’s your breath,’’ he said. “I find myself too preoccupied to do it, and then all of a sudden I notice it’s around my neck down there.’’     

Eventually, Leach centered on the political heart of the matter. “I try to do my best with it,’’ he said, “but once you’re six feet apart, I can’t help but wonder if some of this isn’t a homage to politicians.’’     

Saturday, Leach and Mississippi State were muffled in a shocking loss to Arkansas. The Razorbacks’ first-year coach, Sam Pittman, dutifully wears a mask, saying, “I couldn’t live with myself if I thought I had transferred the virus to somebody.’’     

Coronakarma, to paraphrase John Lennon, is gonna get you.

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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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