Bruce Feiler - Where God Was Born, Abraham, Walking The Bible

The Pope, Yiddish-Speaking Alaskans, and Tiger Down?
Friday, December 29, 2006

The Wall Street Journal (via the Post-Gazette) looks at the year ahead in sports, music, television, and film. Interesting nuggets for me: The Pope is publishing a book on Jesus around Easter, which should be a good way of guaging his popularity vis a vis JPII, who sold 500,000 copies of Crossing the Threshold of Hope in its first week; Norman Mailer has a new novel about Hitler; and Michael Chabon's new book is described as a "alternate-history thriller set amongst Yiddish-speaking Alaskans."

Their take on sports includes the following:

The World Series will come three days later this year, starting on a Tuesday. It is a change Fox, which broadcasts the games, sought so that games 6 and 7 wouldn't fall on low-rated weekend nights. Golf, meanwhile, is moving to a Nascar-inspired schedule that will culminate in a series of playoff tournaments designed to goose ratings.
One potential result: stiffer competition for Tiger Woods, who has come to dominate the world golf rankings and the race for the most earnings. The new system will reset the points awarded to the top players before the four final tournaments, eliminating the possibility of a runaway leader in the competition for a new $10 million purse.

As I'm married to a Tiger fanatic, I've followed this golf story somewhat closely, and I disagree with this take. Golf's problem is that it has four major tournaments, and the season is over in August, ceding the fall to other sports. Tiger is OFF TV entirely from mid-August until January, except when there is the Ryder Cup or Presidents' Cup, where he, um, underperforms, and that's only three days. Golf was looking for a way to continue its season into the fall, which this new system does, thereby guaranteeing Tiger more air time and much more money, both from the games (where it's not guaranteed) and from sponsors. I'm prepared to wager that he approved the new system anyway. This is a big win for him.

Labels: Pop Culture

Posted by B Feiler at 12:37 PM
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