Charles Barkley Muppet, Amy K. Nelson, Matt Ufford
NEW YORK – More than 15 of the best and brightest in sports media were honored at the First Annual Untitled Sports Media Awards Project this Saturday, part of BWB4. Presented by TURF (Tailgaters Urging Responsibility and Fun), USMAP is the first awards project to honor every facet of the always-changing sports media landscape – including TV and radio personalities, mainstream and online writers, podcasters and event tweeters.
Headlining the list of winners were some huge icons in our industry and some up-and-coming names we will certainly be hearing more from in the future. The winners included: Joe Posnanski (Sports Illustrated), Spencer Hall (SB Nation), Greg Wyshynski (Yahoo!), JE Skeets and Tas Melas (The Basketball Jones), Charles Barkley (TNT), Vin Scully, Cris Collinsworth (NBC), Peter Gammons (MLBN), Mark Cuban, Richard Deitsch (Sports Illustrated), Darren Rovell (CNBC), Matt Yoder (Awful Announcing) NFL RedZone and websites like Yahoo! Sports and the DC Sports Bog.
Thousands of nominations were collected in the 15 categories across sports media. A select nomination committee of sports media writers and bloggers parsed through the hundreds of unique nominations in each category to compile a list of finalists for each award.
Then the public helped decide who was the best.
The awards were based on tens of thousands of public votes, as well as rankings from a committee of close to 100 invited media insiders. Those scores were combined to determine the winners for each unique category.
Each winner received a special “trophy” presented by BWB4 (including founders Don Povia, Kyle Bunch and Chris Lucas) and the presenting sponsor TURF. This year’s USMAP “trophy” came in the form of a customized Muppet, personally designed to look like each winner by Dan Levy and his four-year old daughter Zoe and hand-built at FAO Schwarz in New York. Coincidentally, the event was held on the 75th anniversary of Jim Henson’s birthday.
For more information on BWB4 and the Untitled Sports Media Awards Project, visit blogswithballs.com or follow the Twitter hashtags #BwB4 or #USMAP.
For more information on TURF, visit Facebook.com/TurfZone.
LIST OF USMAP NOMINEES AND WINNERS
RISING STAR IN MEDIA
JE Skeets/Tas Melas
Michelle Beadle
Josh Elliott
Bomani Jones
Jonah Keri
Greg Wyshynski (WINNER)
BEST SPORTS SITE – WRITING QUALITY
Deadspin
Every Day Should Be Saturday
Grantland
Run of Play
SI.com
Yahoo! Sports (WINNER)
BEST SPORTS SITE – NEWS BREAKING
The Big Lead
Deadspin
ESPN
Pro Football Talk
Sports By Brooks
SI.com
Yahoo! Sports (WINNER)
BEST TEAM OR REGIONAL SPORTS SITE
The 700 Level
Bleacher Nation
DC Sports Bog (WINNER)
The Jets Blog
MGoBlog
Sactown Royalty
Tomahawk Nation
BEST SPORTSWRITER
Tommy Craggs, Deadspin
Spencer Hall, EDSBS & SB Nation
Drew Magary, KSK & Deadspin
Joe Posnanski, Sports Illustrated (WINNER)
Bethlethem Shoals, The Classical & B/R
Adrian Wojnarowski, Yahoo!
Joe Posnanski Muppet (Middle) reads speech prepared by Joe Posnanski (not pictures) with CBSSports.com's Will Brinson and SI's Richard Deisch
BEST SPORTSWRITER – HUMOR
AJ Daulerio, Deadspin
DJ Gallo, The Sports Pickle
Spencer Hall, EDSBS & SB Nation (WINNER)
Trey Kerby, The Basketball Jones
Drew Magary, KSK & Deaspin
Matt Sebek, Joe Sports Fan
BEST YOUNG SPORTSWRITER (25/UNDER)
Andrew Bucholtz, Yahoo! Canada
Andy Hutchins, SB Nation
Rob Mahoney, ESPN TrueHoop, New York Times, NBC, SI and More
Sebastian Pruiti, NBA Playbook
Josiah Schlatter, NBC Off the Bench
Matt Yoder, Awful Announcing (WINNER)
BEST OLD SPORTSWRITER (65/OVER)
Roger Angell
Frank Deford
Peter Gammons (WINNER)
Dan Jenkins
William Nack
Bob Ryan
BEST PLAY BY PLAY ANNOUNCER
Marv Albert
Ian Darke
Gus Johnson
Al Michaels
Dan Shulman
Vin Scully (WINNER)
BEST IN-GAME ANALYST
Jay Bilas
Cris Collinsworth (WINNER)
David Feherty
Walt Clyde Frazier
Bill Raftery
Jeff Van Gundy
STUDIO PERSONALITY
Michelle Beadle
Charles Barkley (WINNER)
Rich Eisen
Bob Costas
Ernie Johnson
Dan Patrick
JE Skeets
BEST PODCAST
The Basketball Jones (WINNER)
The BS Report
Dan Patrick Show
House of Punte
Rich Eisen Podcast
The Solid Verbal
BEST SPORTS MEDIA TWEETER
Jay Bilas
Richard Deitsch (WINNER)
Spencer Hall
Old Hoss Radbourn
Darren Rovell (WINNER)
JE Skeets
Darren "Muppet" Rovell (l) with Darren "Ace" Rovell (r).
BEST ATHLETE OR EXECUTIVE TWEETER
Mark Cuban (WINNER)
Jim Irsay
Chris Kluwe
Logan Morrison
Steve Nash
Chad Ochocinco
BEST IN SPORTS TECHNOLOGY
Bloomberg Sports Fantasy Front Office
Cover It Live
ESPN3
MLB At Bat
Mocksession/30fps
NCAA MMOD
NFL RedZone (WINNER)
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