NFL draft hype for 2011 has begun
The coverage of the 2010 NFL draft is finally (gasp!) over after a marathon barrage of promotions and hype. What is scary is on ESPN's Monday headline chart one of the items read,"It's time to start talking 2011 draft."
What?
There is ample evidence and data to support the NFL's premiere status among sports on television and the internet. The target audience for ESPN, the NFL network and others is ideal -- men 25-54. It is hard to argue with the dollars and cents value perceived by advertising salesmen pushing for more and more coverage each year of the event which used to be held in relative anonymity on a weekend afternoon.
But the excesses in coverage have caused a trickle down effect we find when we train many of these college athletes who are about to enter the pros.
The breathless coverage of so-called "experts" who know everything from a prospect's time in the 40-yard dash to the amount of calories they consume for breakfast in mid-December has put many of these athletes in a fishbowl existence that would make aquariums jealous. The degree in which these "experts" say a hangnail may move them down from the 186th to 199th spot in the draft has caused both college players and coaches alike to worry about every move they make both on and off the field.
That isn't a totally bad thing; we teach that actions on
and off the field can be -- and often are -- monitored by old and new media alike to say nothing of people with picture phones and Facebook pages.
Where in the past this type of celebrity fascination was limited to a handful of top prospects each year slated to go in the upper echelons of the NFL draft, the obsession by the media toward any player with even a remote chance of being selected has carried over to hundreds of players. The trouble is many of these players who,even if they are selected, aren't likely to stick with a club and make it in the pros.
Yet, the players hear the stories, read the internet hype and start to believe that if a well coiffed analyst or any of his clones even mention them on the air, they think they are headed for stardom. Depending upon the makeup of the athletes with whom we train, they become guarded, introspective and in some cases "stand-offish." The trend is obvious.
It is even more laughable when talking heads give grades to respective teams on their seven selections as if they have a crystal ball as to how they will fare in the NFL. How often are these "experts" held accountable when a team they give a A-minus to has a bunch of busts who never contribute several years down the road? Or when they say a team had a "steal" in the latter part of the sixth round on a player from some small school in the south who doesn't survive two rounds of mini camp. Well, that's life in 21st century media.
The first NFL draft I covered 30 years ago as a sportswriter in Chicago occurred over a span of a couple of hours at a downtown hotel. About a dozen reporters were there, we covered the story, got our quotes and went on to something else. Not much hype, not much hyperbole (the Bears did draft future Hall-of-Famer Dan Hampton, but the story barely nudged the Cubs & Sox off the evening sportscast or front pages that day).
Little attention was given to how much a 10th rounder (they had more rounds back then) could bench press or how a fourth round dropped seven spots because their scores on the Wonderlich IQ test.
Makes you long for the simpler days.
What?
There is ample evidence and data to support the NFL's premiere status among sports on television and the internet. The target audience for ESPN, the NFL network and others is ideal -- men 25-54. It is hard to argue with the dollars and cents value perceived by advertising salesmen pushing for more and more coverage each year of the event which used to be held in relative anonymity on a weekend afternoon.
But the excesses in coverage have caused a trickle down effect we find when we train many of these college athletes who are about to enter the pros.
The breathless coverage of so-called "experts" who know everything from a prospect's time in the 40-yard dash to the amount of calories they consume for breakfast in mid-December has put many of these athletes in a fishbowl existence that would make aquariums jealous. The degree in which these "experts" say a hangnail may move them down from the 186th to 199th spot in the draft has caused both college players and coaches alike to worry about every move they make both on and off the field.
That isn't a totally bad thing; we teach that actions on
and off the field can be -- and often are -- monitored by old and new media alike to say nothing of people with picture phones and Facebook pages. Where in the past this type of celebrity fascination was limited to a handful of top prospects each year slated to go in the upper echelons of the NFL draft, the obsession by the media toward any player with even a remote chance of being selected has carried over to hundreds of players. The trouble is many of these players who,even if they are selected, aren't likely to stick with a club and make it in the pros.
Yet, the players hear the stories, read the internet hype and start to believe that if a well coiffed analyst or any of his clones even mention them on the air, they think they are headed for stardom. Depending upon the makeup of the athletes with whom we train, they become guarded, introspective and in some cases "stand-offish." The trend is obvious.
It is even more laughable when talking heads give grades to respective teams on their seven selections as if they have a crystal ball as to how they will fare in the NFL. How often are these "experts" held accountable when a team they give a A-minus to has a bunch of busts who never contribute several years down the road? Or when they say a team had a "steal" in the latter part of the sixth round on a player from some small school in the south who doesn't survive two rounds of mini camp. Well, that's life in 21st century media.
The first NFL draft I covered 30 years ago as a sportswriter in Chicago occurred over a span of a couple of hours at a downtown hotel. About a dozen reporters were there, we covered the story, got our quotes and went on to something else. Not much hype, not much hyperbole (the Bears did draft future Hall-of-Famer Dan Hampton, but the story barely nudged the Cubs & Sox off the evening sportscast or front pages that day).
Little attention was given to how much a 10th rounder (they had more rounds back then) could bench press or how a fourth round dropped seven spots because their scores on the Wonderlich IQ test.
Makes you long for the simpler days.
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