Elle Duncan and Gary Striewski dig through all things interesting and weird in the world of sports every Monday and Thursday, reacting to the biggest storylines and dissecting viral content around the biggest teams and players.
At the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, the USA women’s basketball team dominated the competition. Eight wins. Zero losses. Gold medals around their necks. They made it look easy. But that’s barely the start of the real story of the Women’s Dream Team. Because the truth about how the team came together, and what they endured on their grueling 14-month road leading up to the Olympics, is one of the most unlikely and most complicated tales told in sports history. Nothing less than the future of basketball was in their hands. If the ’96 team won and captured the hearts of fans, the NBA was prepared to launch the WNBA. If they failed, the league would scrap their plans.
Sport Science is an ongoing television series that explores the science and engineering underlying athletic endeavors. Originally filmed as a 12-part series that was broadcast on FSN from September 9, 2007, to April 20, 2008, the second series also appeared on FSN. Series 3 was picked up by ESPN. ESPN, who has changed the name of the series to SportScience, has yet to air new episodes. Instead, the network has chosen to air various SportScience vignettes during programs such as SportsCenter. Sport Science is a spinoff of its predecessor Fight Science on National Geographic.
The series is filmed inside a Los Angeles airport hangar or on location using a mobile laboratory. Each episode on series 1 focused on testing certain aspects of athletics, while series 2 either poses more questions from previous episodes, or tries to re-analyze sporting moments or trials and tribulations, puts a human against animals or machines, or even checking against other sports or challenging the odds with data gathered using motion sens
Bound for Glory was a television show on ESPN, from October to December 2005. This show featured former Chicago Bear Dick Butkus coaching the suburban Pittsburgh Montour High School Spartans. The Spartans were a perennial Pennsylvania state champion contender in the 1950s and 1960s but have had consistent losing records since. ESPN and Dick Butkus came in with the intention of turning around their post-millennium losing ways but failed miserably. The Spartans made the playoffs the year after Butkus and the ESPN team left.
Shaquille was a 2005 series on ESPN featuring NBA center Shaquille O'Neal. The television show ran six episodes, running before each game of the 2005 Western Conference Finals and before Game One of the NBA Finals. The show ran about 30 minutes.
The television show followed O'Neal on and off the court. He discussed his thoughts on former teammate Kobe Bryant, his determination on winning an NBA championship with his first season on the Miami Heat, and more.
The ratings of the mini-series were so high that a DVD of the original six episodes was released on January 31, 2006, titled Shaq TV: The Reality Series.
Host Laura Rutledge takes the helm of this weekday show featuring the likes of Marcus Spears, Dan Orlovsky, Keyshawn Johnson, Mina Kimes, and Adam Schefter. The "NFL Live" crew entertains fans while offering all the latest news and analysis from across the NFL.
MMA Live is a sports show about mixed martial arts. It is seen on ESPN2. The show features analysts such as Franklin McNeil, Pat Miletich, and others. MMA Live was originally an Internet show, but made the move to television after positive reception. The show is also seen in the UK, Republic of Ireland, Australia and New Zealand on ESPN.
Other occasional hosts of the show include, Chael Sonnen, Brian Stann, Miguel Torres, Stephan Bonnar and Muhammed Lawal. MMA For Dummies is a segment on MMA Live, which features mixed martial arts-fighting techniques. Each segment demonstrates a single technique in a basic and straightforward manner, performed by a notable mixed martial arts fighter.
Sports on Tap was a short-lived American sports trivia game show from Sande Stewart Television that aired on ESPN from April 5 to September 30, 1994 and then from January 3 to March 29, 1995. The game was set in a fictional sports bar named "Sports on Tap". Sportscaster Tom Green was behind the counter as the "Bartender", with Shelly Gray appearing as the bar’s "Waitress". Tom Green currently anchors the Daybreak Morning Show on KWGN TV in Denver. There was no music or real announcer for the show. However, at the beginning and end of the show, as well as before commercial breaks, sounds of veteran announcer Johnny Gilbert doing play-by-play was played as if from a radio or television.Also appearing on camera was game-show veteran Tony Pandolfo, who called out the names of the contestants and acted as a judge during the game.
SpeedWeek is an American television program on ESPN. For 14 years, the weekly show aired multiple times in a week. When SpeedWeek ended in 1997, it was the longest-running motorsports magazine show. SpeedWeek covered multiple genres of motorsports, including stock cars, modifieds, sprint cars, midgets, and off-road racing.
Saturday Night Thunder is a former ESPN program that showed USAC racing on Saturday nights. It began on Thursday nights with the name Thursday Night Thunder on ESPN2. It featured tracks around the United States, although it frequently featured tracks in the Indianapolis area. Various racing series were televised, including Silver Crown, midget, and sprint cars. The series witnessed drivers like Jeff Gordon's rise prior to moving to NASCAR. It also witness the death of driver Rich Vogler.
During the summer of 1993, the program also featured the Fastmasters series.