ESPN's "SportsCenter" is "hitting the road with a renewed enthusiasm and regularity," but "don't call the recent internal push to do the news on location more often 'eventizing,'" according to Tony Maglio of THE WRAP. ESPN Senior VP/SportsCenter & News Rob King said, "I don't think it's about ‘eventizing’ because our world is slightly different than the broader news media world in that sports lives on a calendar." King "sees the push as the next natural progression for a big tent show that made an effort to do more live episodes several years ago." Maglio noted the show in the past "would only travel for a handful of major sporting events." But the show has recently traveled to Florida State, Ole Miss and Mississippi State, "and will also have a big presence" for Sunday's NASCAR Sprint Cup season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway. The show also featured "coverage from the Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio" for Veterans Day. King said that he is now "most looking forward to his robust slate of New Year's Eve and New Year's Day live shoots." With "half a dozen big games" over two days, "SportsCenter" is "going to try to be in all six areas at once." King stressed the importance of "a fan connection in the Twitter age," and said that he and his team "wanted 'SportsCenter' to be seen as 'more fun.'" ESPN's Jonathan Coachman, a "SportsCenter" anchor who was recently on the road for the World Series, said, "We're starting to realize that it's not really 90 percent news anymore. People want to be entertained when they're seeing the news or the highlights. And I think that's one of the practical reasons for taking the show out on the road" (THEWRAP.com, 11/11).
TOSH SPICE: The HOLLYWOOD REPORTER's Diana Swartz noted comedian Daniel Tosh on Tuesday's episode of Comedy Central's "Tosh.0" drew attention to a new segment on "SportsCenter" that "resembles his weekly 'Web Redemption' segment and duplicates one of its signature lines." Tosh said, "Did ESPN really think I wouldn't notice when they came up with an eerily familiar new segment called 'Awesome Video Segment'?" The ESPN segment featured a reporter asking, "Are you ready to give it another shot?" That phrase is used by Tosh on "Web Redemption." An ESPN spokesperson yesterday defended the language used on the show, saying, "This was more of an instance of us using a common phrase than it was copying his wording" (HOLLYWOODREPORTER.com, 11/12).
