| | | Hoping for a ratings bonanza, CBS will broadcast the first episode of its second "Survivor" series immediately after the Giants-Ravens game in two weeks. Thus, viewers will be subjected to the most intelligence-insulting, stomach-churning and stamina-challenging moments ever endured by a nationwide audience, a stretch of reality-based drama that will leave only one person standing.
And after Super Bowl XXXV and its two weeks of unrelenting hype are over, that person also can watch "Survivor II."
|  | | If you don't know who these two people are, you certainly will by the end of the next two weeks. |
Yes, it's that time of year again, the worst stretch in the entire sports calendar. The playoffs are over, the NFL's final two are set and sportswriters are flooding into the area in such volume you would think there was an All-U-Can-Eat special at all Tampa-area Red Lobsters. The Super Bowl is on its way, and there is nowhere you can hide.
They say the Internet is an unlimited medium with an infinite amount of room for an unending dissemination of all ideas and thoughts. Which means it might just be large enough to contain all the Super Bowl coverage over the next two weeks, just as long as you don't include the stories and photos of Jason Sehorn and Angie Harmon. If Elvis rose from the dead, fathered septuplets with Oprah and had them all get trapped in a Texas well, the media coverage still would not approach the level of typical
Super Bowl hype.
Unless, of course, Elvis also had an affair with Angie Harmon.
Super Bowl hype is as relentless as Ron Dayne in a buffet line. And here's what we can expect in the coming fortnight:
Flustered by the thousands of surrounding reporters, a writer will ask Sehorn, "How long have you been a white cornerback?"
Dot-coms each will pay $2.3 million for 30 seconds of commercial time during the Super Bowl. CBS will make sure it gets that money in advance. In cash.
A television personality will report that scalpers are getting $1,500 for tickets in the end zone and that prostitutes are getting $2,000 for a quickie at the team hotel.
|  | | And you'll certainly hear a little about this fella, too. |
The referees will flip a coin the size of a '57 Chevy hubcap to officially open the game, but the game will be unofficially opened the previous night with an even older and more cherished Super Bowl tradition, the arrest of a player.
Analysts will estimate that Americans will legally wager more than $1 billion on the Super Bowl and illegally bet another $3 billion. You won't see any of this money however, no matter how many squares you buy in the office pool.
Confused by the 100 assorted players and coaches in the game, a reporter will ask New York quarterback Kerry Collins whether it's his mother or Jim Plunkett's mother who is blind.
Sports Illustrated will run another photo of Anna Kournikova, informing readers that she will not be playing in the big game.
Every media outlet will do a story on Baltimore linebacker Ray Lewis' arrest in connection with murder at last year's Super Bowl, explaining how the charges eventually were dropped, how he went on to become the league's best defensive player and how Angie Harmon would have handled the case on "Law and Order."
In an attempt to update the halftime show and make it fresh, the Super Bowl will have the "Up With People" singers perform music from
Eminem's latest album.
Going for a historic angle, reporters will write about the old Baltimore Colts, with die-hard fans maintaining that their preferred name for the Ravens stadium is not PSINet Stadium, but Robert Irsay Memorial Stadium.
And finally ...
Desperate for a different angle, a tabloid reporter will ask a player, "If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be and would you be tall enough for my cameraman to climb and get a photo of Jason Sehorn and Angie Harmon's hotel suite?"
Jim Caple of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer is a regular contributor to ESPN.com's baseball coverage and Page 2.
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