ESPN 25: 25 Mind-Bending, Eye-Popping, Culture Morphing Years of Highlights [Hardcover]

Charles Hirshberg (Author), Chris Berman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2004

hen ESPN went on the air in September 1979, the company believed that there was room on television for dedicated sports programming. At the time, sports programming was considered a risk, and ESPN a maverick. Twenty-five years later, ESPN is the leader in sports, influencing the way we think about sports, the way the media covers sports, and how we perceive athletes. ESPN has grown from one cable station into a sports empire. ESPN25, the book, celebrates the people behind ESPN, the sports they cover, the athletes that play their hearts out, and, of course, the fans who care. The book includes the Best and Worst of Everything in Sports Over the Past 25 Years, an illustrated foldout of the Top 35 Athletes of the Past 25 years, the funniest sports quotes of the past 25 years, the DVD, an intro by Berman, Chuck's essay on the Highlights Culture and how it has changed the world of sports over the past 25 years. Bound into the book is a free DVD containing the ever popular, and now classic, ESPN SportsCenter commercials. Beginning in May '04 and running through September '04, ESPN will feature special 25th Anniversary programming, including television and radio specials, magazine features, and website contests. Perfect for both the serious and casual sports fan, ESPN25 relives some of the greatest moments in sports on each and every page.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This engaging history of the cable show SportsCenter makes the case that the sports highlight tape is the central artistic-discursive genre of our time. Sportswriter Hirshberg traces the development of the sports highlights tape from its origins in Classical Greek vase painting, through such masterpieces as Leni Riefenstahl’s depiction of the 1936 Berlin Olympics, to the post-World War II revolution instigated by ABC producer Roone Arledge, who freed TV cameras from play-by-play to investigate human interest and brought mankind the blessings of instant replay and slo-mo. In the hothouse climate of a fledgling sports cable network desperate to fill airtime, the highlights tape branched out from the staid, chronological "Who Won?" format and flourished into art. Hirshberg narrates the human drama and pathos surrounding the compiling and editing of the tapes, analyzes their 17 archetypal themes, including "Blowout" and "Turning Point," and ponders their social impact as they reconfigure sporting events into flurries of disconnected, telegenic bursts. Highlights tapes can have an edifying effect, he acknowledges, by, say, admonishing lackadaisical players and revealing the unexpected importance of cleats, but they also distort and debase sports by encouraging players to embrace highlights-worthy individual showmanship instead of selfless teamwork. And what of the pain of athletes who see their most embarrassing mistakes immortalized in flub and goat highlight tapes? Hirshberg’s treatment of the subject, sprinkled with trivia sidebars on such topics as great team mascots and historic national anthem renditions, is erudite and thoughtful, but always light-handed. If the goal of sports commentary is to raise the relatively inconsequential to the level of entertaining pseudo-significance, this book qualifies as a small gem. Photos.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Not only has it given sports fans more games and more news, ESPN has literally changed the games it covers. The extensive highlights and Top 10 plays of the day on SportsCenter, the network's nightly flagship news show, have become features on which athletes aspire to appear. It has also added a much-needed sense of perspective to sports, thanks to liberal doses of humor, bad puns, and self-parodying announcer cliches. This volume offers a little bit of broadcast history (though not as much as Evey's volume, above) and a lot of inside jokes, on-air gaffes, and sports oddities. This is an ESPN-generated account, and in keeping with its trademark tongue-in-cheek style, there is plenty of silly stuff, including a page of hair do's-and-don'ts (e.g., football coach Jimmy Johnson's unflappable hairspray-mousse construct). The text is built on the SportsCenter highlight theme: it's a fascinating collection of uber-clips collected in book form. It's fun and will be in great demand. Wes Lukowsky
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 144 pages
• Publisher: ESPN; Har/DVD edition (September 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 140133704X
• ISBN-13: 978-1401337049
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,152,823 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Dare I say, en fuego....., September 21, 2004

By 

Tim (Pennsylvania) - See all my reviews

This review is from: ESPN 25: 25 Mind-Bending, Eye-Popping, Culture Morphing Years of Highlights (Hardcover)

I'll admit, I paid the $25 on this book mainly for the DVD which I must say is stellar. The commercial featuring Keith Olbermann singing "Darrryllll" is downright hilarious. The DVD also features the famed "Around The World" and Y2K commercials as well, I believe there are 30 commercials in all if I am correct. As for the book, I'll admit I haven't read much of it yet however the chapter on how Keith Olbermann and Dan Patrick invented the catch-phrase was very good. If you are a fan of ESPN or enjoy the "This Is Sportscenter" commercials, this is a must-have.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Let's Go to the Videotape, November 16, 2004

By 

Todd Hawley (San Francisco CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: ESPN 25: 25 Mind-Bending, Eye-Popping, Culture Morphing Years of Highlights (Hardcover)

It's hard to imagine ESPN starting off way back when as a small cable operation that appeared not to have a future some 25 years later. And yet ESPN has forever influenced and changed sports broadcasting. This book takes a look back at some of the highlights of those 25 years, along with anecdotes from some of sports' greatest moments and ESPN anchors. Heck with the foreword by Chris Berman, what more could you ask for? There's even a brief history of how sports has been reported since the proverbial "beginning of time." And throughout the book are 'best of" lists: the best draft pics, the best sports mascots, best venues to watch a sports event, even ESPN's choices for the greatest athletes of the last 25 years, along with numerous others.

The book helps capture what those crazy early days of ESPN were like, along with an idea of what things are like around there nowadays. I remember watching some of the "early days" of ESPN up to the present. It's amazing to think ESPN has now become an institution. This book is not an "in depth" history of ESPN, there are other books for that. But it is an enjoyable, easily read book that details the ESPN experience and how that experience has changed us all.

And yes points off on the included DVD, it's a shame some of the classic SportsCenter commericals like the Y2K aren't on here.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book!, December 12, 2004

By 

Eric Kent (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: ESPN 25: 25 Mind-Bending, Eye-Popping, Culture Morphing Years of Highlights (Hardcover)

I read this on a 2-hour flight to miami.

Made the flight seem like 20 minutes.

Very good read!