Maybe I’m a little late coming to this, but have you noticed the creepy crawlies running across the screen on ESPN college basketball games? What in the name of Arachnophobia is going on? I’m often working at the times these games are on, so I don’t get to see many. But when I tuned in the other night during the Memphis-Tulsa game, I witnessed for the first time ESPN’s aggressive attempt to interact with viewers.
In addition to the usual info crawling across the bottom of the screen, there were notes going the other way about how to text message comments from your phone. So people did it. A lot.
Mind you, this ran across the TV screen, half the time in the opposite direction of the play on the court. If I wanted to watch tennis, I’d switch the channel. There were more moving parts than the teacup ride at the fair.
Here’s a sampling:
Hippo: Memphis is good when they don’t play so out of control. They get into trouble when they are running too fast.
Ajbuzz: Memphis is not the same team as they were with Rose! Pitt will show everyone that they deserve to be No. 1!
(Exclamation points are popular.)
Webber: I say Duke wins it all!
Jeremiah, La.: Louisville is a team to watch out for to make a run at the national championship. Especially if Edgar Sosa (interrupted by replay) … keeps his confidence at a high level!
(Here comes another ESPN.com interactive plug.)
Goon, Ms.: Courtney Fortson is the best freshman I have seen this year.
Jon, Tx (… again TEXAS): Griffin is unstoppable on offense and defense. That’s the type of player that deserves player of the year. Boomer Sooner!
Nathan, WA: Somebody needs to show Washington some love. Jon Brockman is a beast.
And so on and so on.
Soon, they came out of a commercial break, only to plug the interactive poll question and show a graphic: 4,087 voted which team would be the last unbeaten, Clemson, Pittsburgh or Wake Forest. Pitt won with 54 percent.
Then came the next poll question about how far Pitt would go, then a plug to go to the ESPN Web site to find the interactive area and get involved. I undertstand the desire to interact with the peeps. We try to do it here, too. But a little moderation would nice when it comes to promo-ing.
I think they finished the game, but I can’t be too sure. I was too busy, uh, watching the game.
