Media Stew

Pop culture through the lens of TV, movies, and games.

Tim Delaney teaches sociology at SUNY Oswego. Author of such books as Simpsonology: There's A Little Bit of Springfield in all of Us! and Seinology: The Sociology of Seinfeld. See full bio

July 24, 2008, Creativity

Comments on "ESPN's Title Town, USA: And the Winner Should Be..."

ESPN's Title Town, USA: And the Winner Should Be...

By Tim Delaney, Ph.D. on July 24, 2008 in Media Stew

If you are an avid sports fan, undoubtedly, you watch ESPN's SportsCenter. Reflecting its primary focus on entertainment, rather than sports, the folks at ESPN are conducting yet another unscientific and haphazard fan voting contest-Title Town, USA. Read More

Idiot

Submitted by Neal on July 28, 2008 - 6:51am.

Hey get your facts straight first, Valdosta didn't win at one level you fool. How about our 3 National Championships at the NCAAA level. 400+ high school and college titles. You make me sick. Guess what, Valdosta IS Titletown, you're just an idiot.

Valdosta

Submitted by Tim Delaney, Ph.D. on July 28, 2008 - 8:41am.

Fool, idiot, I make you sick? Wow! Mellow out Neal! I expressed an opinion as you did! I set criteria as ESPN did not. And that was the main point. My point was, that to truly be a titletown one must win at at three levels: pro, college, and high school. And then there are intangilbles. That you missed this point says alot about you!

you pick the 7 biggest

Submitted by ralph on July 28, 2008 - 7:23am.

you pick the 7 biggest cities retard - they don't actually have any homegrown talent they just have the money to buy players from true sports towns where the hometown rivalries are almost more important that the world series
and LA???? the Dodgers? Clippers? KIngs? They have one decent team (Lakers) and the rest suck

Ralph

Submitted by Tim Delaney, Ph.D. on July 28, 2008 - 8:12am.

Retard? For expressing a comment and criteria that ESPN did not? Interesting response on your part! A better response would have been to express an intelligent counter-response as to which city you think should be titletown and explain why. UCLA and USC are hometown rivals, or did you forget that?

Sporting News agrees...It is Big Cities!

Submitted by Anonymous on October 27, 2009 - 5:56pm.

In October 2009, the Sporting News provided it's list of North America's "Best Sports Cities" and to the surprise of few, except Ralph, all the top cities were "big" cities. Starting from the top, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Mmm...I guess the original posting has great merit!

ESPN

Submitted by Tim Delaney, Ph.D. on July 28, 2008 - 8:39am.

ESPN

Dear Dr. Delaney, I

Submitted by Sara on July 28, 2008 - 10:12am.

Dear Dr. Delaney,
I respectfully disagree with your assesment that a city should have teams at "all levels" in order to be considered "Title Town USA" and here's why.
To me, the contest is leveled at the heart and spirit of competition. Professional sports teams are paid to win titles and when they do, the fan base rises dramatically. Ten years ago, Boston would probalby not be in consideration due to the much ballyhooed "curse" and no World Series win. Yes, there are faithful fans for all pro sports teams, but a large part of the team's fanbase rides on who the team contracts to play and the numbers in the win-loss column. And when they win, they are simply doing their job.
Drop down a level to college and then another to high school and you have kids who play for the love of the game and fans who attend for the same reason. There is much more invested by the fans and the players at this level, as evidenced by the high level of support garnered from the smaller towns in this contest. Some of these "pro-sports" cities only had hundreds of fans turn out for the taping of their ESPN segment, whereas the smallest towns had thousands. That level of commitment and spirit embodies "Title Town USA."
Thank you for your time.

Sara

Submitted by Tim Delaney, Ph.D. on July 28, 2008 - 11:02am.

And I respect your conclusion as it was well-thought out. Certainly, high school and college games are filled with passion and in many areas of the country, sporting activities are the life-blood of the community. And that is great! Sports, even when simply discussing them, certainly bring out the passion in people! I just wish that ESPN would come out and state what thier criteria is for determining a titletown. That was, after all, the point of this blog entry.

Title Town USA

Submitted by Robbie Walker on July 28, 2008 - 10:48am.

Who cares what Tim thanks anyway

Nice...everyone is entitled

Submitted by Sara on July 28, 2008 - 11:15am.

Nice...everyone is entitled to an opinion. Discussions of said opinions are the basis for solid communication and quite often lead to positive conclusions and solutions. Could you imagine the the debates over how the constitution would be framed if our founding fathers had simply said "who cares what you think?"
It's called intellectual stimulation and we should all try it sometime...