#1

casters have become little more than sales

in Allgemein 10.07.2018 16:48
von riluowanying123 • 2.943 Beiträge

SAN MARTIN, Calif. -- Lydia Ko has got all the shots, on and off the course, from curling in putts to cutting up with reporters, delivered with an ease that belies her age.As the 19-year-old was being interviewed Saturday following the third round of the U.S. Womens Open at CordeValle, a journalist asked Ko about her routine to prepare for pressure-packed Sundays.I go partying, Ko said, partying all night and come straight to the course.The joke drew laughs like her game attracts raves, although Ko would have to start doing stand-up for her humor to wow at the same level as her golf.Having won two of the past three womens major championships, Ko is in excellent position to make it three out of four. The worlds top-ranked player shot a 2-under 70 to take a 1-stroke lead over Eun Hee Ji, who won the 2009 U.S. Womens Open, and Sung Hyun Park, at 7-under 209 after 54 holes.Everyone will be chasing Ko, who already has caught most of her sports significant records for success at an early age and is poised, if she closes out a victory in the womens games oldest major, to collect two others.Appreciating all of Kos achievements can feel like being a kid with too many toys under a Christmas tree.Ko won an LPGA event at 15, became the No. 1 player in the world at 17 and, when she won the 2015 Evian Championship, surpassed Morgan Pressel as the youngest winner of a womens major. Thirty-seven LPGA events have been won by teenagers, with Ko accounting for 13. The next-best teen record belongs to Lexi Thompson with four wins.If Ko (19 years, 2 months, 16 days) wins Sunday, she will break Inbee Parks mark as the youngest winner of the U.S. Womens Open by nine months. She would become the youngest golfer to win a third major, eclipsing Tom Morris Jr., who was slightly more than two months older than Ko when he won the 1870 Open Championship.Ko is a rare comet of a golfer, but Saturday night was going to be oh, so ordinary.The best thing is to not get out of your routines, Ko said. It doesnt matter if its the first day or the last day or the third day or an extra day. I love my sleep, so I know that Ill have a good nights sleep. But nothing different. Nothing special to eat. I want my moms cooking, and thats it.Kos putting, usually a strong suit, has lived up to its reputation the past two days at CordeValle. She has needed only 25 putts in each of the second and third rounds. A Friday 66 allowed Ko to cut into a 9-shot deficit she had to Mirim Lee after a first-round 73, and being handy on the greens kept her under par Saturday.In particular, three long putts -- hard-breaking 25-footers for birdie on Nos. 3 and 13, and a par save of similar length on No. 14 -- were pivotal.I wasnt expecting that one to go in, Ko said of the birdie effort at the 13th, which she thought she had misread. I was walking a little bit and then I saw the ball drop, so it kind of took me by surprise. It was a lucky one. But I almost think my par on 14 was the more meaningful of the two.Ko did a minor fist pump after sinking the putts at the 13th and 14th. Demonstrative is normally not her style, but looks can be deceiving.I look a lot calmer than what goes on in the inside, Ko said. I definitely do get nervous, but I think thats part of it. I think nerves are good because it means youre excited. Youre ready. It means a lot to you.As three-time Masters champion Jimmy Demaret once said, the key is to have the butterflies flying in formation.I guarantee Lydia feels the same things we do, said Brittany Lang, whose third-round 68 moved her into a tie for fourth, 2 strokes behind Ko. She does a better job controlling them. She gets back to what shes doing, and she executes. Its impressive. Shes the master of it, its unreal.The last time Ko had the 54-hole lead at a major, last months KPMG Womens PGA Championship at Sahalee Country Club near Seattle, she went out on Sunday and shot 67 and still lost -- to fellow teenager Brooke Henderson in a playoff after the Canadian closed with a 65.I thought there were so many positives, from that final round at Sahalee, Ko said. All I can do is try my best. If somebody plays better than me, I cant do much about it. That was a perfect example of that. Brooke played so impressively on that Sunday. And for her to win the playoff with a birdie, I think that just kind of summed up her day.Ko missed a short birdie putt on the 71st hole at the Womens PGA, a putt that would have salted away a third straight major title. But even the greatest champions dont make everything, and they tend to dwell on their successes, not their failures.Although not yet 20, Ko has a stunning reservoir of grace under pressure going back to childhood. When Ko was only 11 she faced an older opponent in the final of the New Zealand Womens Amateur. Ko didnt win the match but left an indelible impression on those who watched with her cool, which has become such a trademark during her precocious career.Confidence is an earned commodity, Fox golf analyst Paul Azinger noted during Saturdays broadcast, and shes earned it through achievement.Hard work, more than most could imagine, has brought Ko to this point, not that there arent some occasional diversions. In fact, on vacation in her native South Korea last December, Ko did stay up almost all night attending with her sister and friends a Psy concert. The Gangnam Style performers show didnt start until midnight.The concert started at 12 and ended at 2, and there was an encore that went for an hour, Ko said. I ended up coming home at 5 a.m. My throat was a little weird the next day, and I dont think Ive sweated that much in my life. I had a seat but there was no point in having one because you were jumping up and down the whole time. I had a good time.The atmosphere at CordeValle on Sunday will be a bit different, but fun is fun. Youth Cavaliers Jerseys . Supported by three-run homers from Jayson Werth and Wilson Ramos, the young right-hander went seven strong innings in the Washington Nationals 8-4 victory over the Arizona Diamondbacks on Friday night. Cavaliers Jerseys Outlet . Three came down to the fourth quarter while quarterbacks continued to shine in all four games; so important to the overall quality of the game. http://www.cheapcavaliersjerseyschina.com/ . Robredo, ranked No. 16, bounced back from an upset loss to Leonardo Mayer in the second round of the Royal Guard Open in Chile last week to down Carreno Busta in 1 hour, 25 minutes. On a day filled mostly with qualifying matches, fifth-seeded Marcel Granollers of Spain also entered the second with a 7-5, 3-6, 6-2 win over Aljaz Bedene of Slovenia, while Guido Pella of Argentina defeated Guillermo Garcia-Lopez of Spain 7-6 (6), 6-4 to advance. Wholesale Cavaliers Jerseys . Q: Team Canada announces their Olympic roster three weeks from today. Who is general manager Steve Yzerman watching? LeBrun: Over the last 48 hours, hes taken in the home-and-home between the Dallas Stars and Colorado Avalanche with Jamie Benn and Matt Duchene being the obvious targets. Discount Cavaliers Jerseys . Sulaiman, 44, was chosen unanimously Tuesday in a vote by the leadership, the World Boxing Council said. Sulaiman becomes the sixth president of the organization. Drive thy business or it will drive thee. -- Benjamin FranklinAs the Cessna Citation X flashed through the desert sky between Los Angeles and Tucson, Arizona, Oscar De La Hoya sung the praises of a young Mexican boxer from Guadalajara he called Canelo. De La Hoya was on his way to help promote a Golden Boy card, but was much more excited about the redheaded prodigy than anybody fighting that evening at the Desert Diamond Casino.Even though Saul Alvarez was only 19 and virtually unknown outside of Mexico, De La Hoya was convinced that he was a future superstar and seemed almost beside himself at the prospect of becoming his promoter. That was in June 2009, and by the following January, Alvarez had signed a promotional contract with Golden Boy.De La Hoya hasnt always made the smartest business decisions. On the same flight he also said he could trust Richard Schaefer with his wallet. That, of course, was before their acrimonious split a few years later.But De La Hoya was right about Alvarez, who has grown to become Golden Boys top attraction and the cash cow that helped keep the company afloat through difficult times. And while that has been beneficial for Golden Boy, it has done little to help the sport in general.Immediately after Alvarezs ninth-round knockout of Liam Beefy Smith last Saturday night, HBOs Max Kellerman grilled Alvarez about his failure to fight Gennady Golovkin and the notion that De La Hoya was the one holding up a showdown.Oscar didnt say a word. He just stood there grinning, while Canelo, through HBO translator Jerry Olaya, told Kellerman that De La Hoya and he were partners and worked together.Then, clearly tired of the line of questioning, the victorious fighter raised his fist, yelled Viva Mexico! and walked away. You can do that sort of stuff when youve just drawn 51,240 to AT&T Stadium outside of Dallas and knocked the stuffing out of your handpicked opponent.Fans and much of the media have heaped blame on both Alvarez and De La Hoya for ducking GGG, but the situation goes deeper than that. Yes, the failure to make boxings hottest match is part of the problem, but its just one symptom among many others bedeviling a business model that is gradually self-destructing.One fighter ducking another is nothing new and not a particularly big deal in the big picture. Sometimes they eventually fight and sometimes they dont. Sometimes when they do, you wish they hadnt.A Floyd Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao stinker could reoccur at any time. Granted, its unlikely Golovkin and Alvarez would inflict such torture upon us, but you never know. Weve learned the hard way that public demand is no guarantee of excellence.There are many issues contributing to the current state of boxing and no quick fix or single solution. But one thing that would get things moving in the right direction would be to go back to promoting fights, not fighters. At the top level it usually takes two great fighters to make a great fight, not an A-side versus a B-side. In most cases thats a recipe for mediocrity.Money or the lack thereof is always part of the equation. Fights that belong on basic cable are now broadcast on subscription television, while fights that belong on subscription TV are now regular pay-per-view fodder. Its a mess and has been going on for so long now, its not even the new norm -- its the same old, same old.Promoters will tell you they have no choice, that theyre trapped in a cycle of spiraling costs and greedy fighters. But are they really trapped or just peddling second-rate goods, regardless of how it affects the long-range health of the sport?This sort of thing began long before Premier Boxing Champions arrived and sank hundreds of millions of dollars into purchasing television airtime and inflating its fighters purses in a bid to corner the market. Its safe to say, however, that PBC has complicated an already complicated situation.Except for buying airtime, HBO has done pretty much the same. Roy Jones Jr., for example, was paid excessive fees to fight a string of run-of-the-mill opponents such as Richard Frazier, Richard Hall and Glen Kelly. And if there was ever a fighter who didnt need to be babied, it was Jones in his prime.Jones never approached one million PPV buys. The closest he came was just over 600,000 for his match with heavyweight titleholder John Ruiz, which came at the end of Jones prime.More recently, Andre Ward was paid almost $5 million for a trio of tuneups against Paul Smith, Sullivan Barrera and Alexander Brand -- three overmatched opponents with next to no chance of winning. Its understandable that Ward wanted to ease back into to action as a light heavyweight after a lengthy layoff, but none of the bouts were worthy of subscription TV.Surely, there weree far more worthy fights that could have been made for the same amount of money.dddddddddddd When did it become a premium networks role to broadcast stay-busy fights?The rationale behind such cozy matchmaking is that important house fighters would remain obligated to a network when a valid match cropped up. They were allowed to beat up a bunch of guys who didnt belong in the same ring in order to keep them happy and in the fold. But is it a worthwhile approach?It is no accident that over the last decade only one of the matches selected fight of the year by the American Association of Boxing Writers was a PPV fight (Juan Manuel Marquez-Manny Pacquiao IV). Thats bound to happen when a significant chunk of the budget is allocated to pampering stars with meaningless paydays.Showtime has also invested in fighters rather than fights. Most recently, the subscription network has handsomely rewarded heavyweight titleholder Deontay Wilder for running roughshod over a modest collection of adversaries, none of whom posed a serious threat to his unbeaten record.The result is that after 37 pro bouts, we still havent seen the Bronze Bomber in a competitive fight. American fans want to fall in love with Wilder in the worse way, but even they are bound to eventually wonder why he has never fought a fighter theyd heard of before he signed to fight Wilder. If and when Wilder takes on what passes for an elite heavyweight these days, you can be sure it will be via PPV.The boxing industry woke up to the fact that PPV could be an extremely lucrative business model when George Foreman challenged reigning heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield on April 19, 1991, and 1.4 million homes bought the PPV.A month after the Holyfield-Foreman blockbuster, HBO televised the James Toney-Michael Nunn fight on PPV with disappointing results.Only 19,000 people bought that fight, said Mark Taffet, then senior vice president of HBO Sports. We found out that either an event is huge or its not, and when its not, you better be careful.It has been 25 years since those back-to-back PPVs and the lessons learned are routinely ignored, if not entirely forgotten.Holyfield-Foreman was a fight between a pair of future Hall of Famers, while Alvarez-Smith was what Kellerman called a showcase fight several times during the broadcast. By definition, a showcase is a setting for exhibiting something or someone in an attractive or favorable aspect.Brave Beefy proved the perfect foil for Alvarez to achieve the desired result, but despite the huge crowd on hand at the home of the Dallas Cowboys, it was not a PPV-worthy match. Alvarezs star power among Mexicans and Mexican-Americans made the fight a viable business proposition, but for a significant number of fans disappointed that Golovkin wasnt in the other corner, it was a nonstarter.Promoters and television networks bemoan the current lack of bankable stars, but are going about trying to create new ones the wrong way. The majority of broadcasters have become little more than salespeople, hyping fighters ad nauseam in the hope that the incessant puffery will turn them into box-office gold.But fighters dont become stars because talking heads say so. They do it by beating other top fighters in compelling matchups. If theres a magic formula, its this: Make good fights. The stars will rise on their merits.The Los Angeles Times reported that HBOs ratings for its regular fights are down 10 percent from 2015. Prior to Alvarez-Smith, the networks three PPV events this year have totaled an estimated 850,000 buys. Last years Alvarez-Miguel Cotto PPV in November alone generated 930,000. The reason for the disparity is simple: Alvarez-Cotto was not a showcase fight or a tuneup. It was a match between elite fighters.If less is more at this particular time, so be it. Quality always trumps quantity, and if an excellent fight is not available, it is foolish trying to p

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