Instead of a traditional video, we have Chance the Rapper singing a song in honor of the Greatest, punctuated by quotes from Ali himself, which actually are the most rap-like aspects of what’s very much a neo-gospel number that would fit in with “Coloring Book.”
“Ain’t no one better/Ain’t no one prettier….” Chance sings, as Ali, a choir and brass backing him up. He even pays tribute to Ali’s movements as he weaves and bobs to the music until it comes to an abrupt, powerful end.
The credits just roll. There’s no need to bring back Cena. We’ve come to a perfect end.
A Tribute to Muhammad Ali
This year we lost maybe the most important athlete in US history, so it makes sense that the ESPYs would end with this memorial, presented by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
I’m totally okay with that because it means we’re that much closer to a “musical tribute to Muhammad Ali” featuring Chance the Rapper. One assumes this is the grand finale after the ad break.
Best Male Athlete: LeBron James
Dwyane Wade is here to hand out the award to Best Male Athlete. There has never been less suspense ever as Wade announces the name of his former teammate LeBron James who gives a speech consisting of maybe two sentences.
Best Female Athlete: Breanna Stewart
Gina Rodriguez, Josh Donaldson and Bryce Harper come out to give the award for Best Female Athlete which goes to Breanna Stewart who was part of UConn’s Women’s Basketball program and is now a member of the Seattle Storm. She gives a brief impassioned plea for us to pay more attention to women’s sports.
The recipient of this year's Jimmy V Award - Craig Sager. #ESPYS https://t.co/WbKHeewbyn
— ESPYS (@ESPYS) July 14, 2016
Yeah I’m crying. I told you this would happen.
Sager gives a long list of accomplishments topping it up with holding halftime on court interviews with Gregg Popovich with “the Spurs down seven,” inducing a laugh from the otherwise solemn audience.
Sager echoes Jimmy V in his closing line. “I will never give up and I will never give in and I will continue to keep fighting, sucking the marrow out of life as life sucks the marrow out of me.” The speech ends with him giving Biden a short hug.
“Time is something that cannot be bought… it’s not an endless supply. Time is simply how you live your life.”
Sager seems overwhelmed, talking in a country drawl, thanking his wife and his family. Fighting tears. “Your love is my strength.”
“I’d also like to thanks my entire sports family…” Here he gets stronger, especially as he addresses, well, us. “All of you, the sports family.”
He then talks about passing the children’s hospital on a daily basis, playing with the trains there, listening to the laughter of the children. It’s “a few minutes of my life that leukemia can’t take from me.”
The video ends with him working Game 6 of the NBA Finals for ABC. An event that was emotional at the time and now has added poignancy.
Sager comes out to accept the reward and he’s dressed fabulously, his vest an Andy Warhol concoction of swirling disco ball planets, purple and gold.
“My goal is not to miss a game,” Sager says in the footage. Then it shows him swallowing a fistful of pills from a fittingly rainbow-colored case. “Mind of matter,” Sager says, about how he keeps doing it.
I am not going to make it through this video people. The video (narrated by Ron Howard) show Sager going through the experimental procedure that has allowed him to continue working after being essentially being handed a death sentence by doctors earlier this year.
Jimmy V Preservation Award: Craig Sager
And the V Foundation flashes on screen and already I choke up a bit. Joe Biden comes in to hand the Jimmy V Award for Preservation to Craig Sager, opening the speech with memories of his late son Bo.
Everybody from the Cavs but LeBron James speaks this time around which is amusing.
Cleveland Cavaliers win Best Team
John Cena: “Today Tom Brady lost his Deflategate appeal.”
Some things we do not joke about, John.
Bryan Cranston comes in to present Best Team, which is absolutely ridiculous that it exists. The Cleveland Cavaliers win, probably because of the degree of difficulty in winning in Cleveland.
Kobe Bryant makes a joke about ending his career not in the World Cup or a Super Bowl but with a 17-65 final season. Okay I’ll admit it, I laughed.
“I’m far from done” Kobe Bryant says at the end, in what sounds vaguely like a threat as much as a promise.
Abby Wambach: “It was about working as hard as I could… embracing every challenge.” She also adds some points about equal pay and equal opportunity and stands up for the US women’s team.
This is a pretty kickass statement actually.
Peyton Manning: “The ESPYs have always meant a lot to me.” The thing about Manning is that he probably means this completely. “I have a personal relationship with this Brand.”
“Act 3” video: Peyton Manning’s team won a Super Bowl even though it was probably despite of his presents Kobe Bryant scored 60 points in his final game even though it took him three million shots and his team was one of the worst in the league.
Yeah, yeah. Very poignant.
Yes I am a Boston fan, why do you ask?
The point of this whole video seems to be: These Three People Were Good At Sports. Also: I probably should recognize more of these talking heads than I actually do and this is probably on my pop culture IQ.
And we have the Icons presentation/celebration for Peyton Manning, Abby Wambach and Kobe Bryant. Justin Timberlake introduces them, which also sounds about right.
He gives a perfunctory introduction before we go into the video presentation...
WATCH: Zaevion Dobson’s mother and brothers accept the Arthur Ashe Award. https://t.co/E5NGbC8TyX
— ESPYS (@ESPYS) July 14, 2016
A haunting song by Andra Day. I’m sure Twitter will be figuring out who ESPN completely forgot to include in their montage of those who have passed.
Billy Jean King comes in to honor late Tennessee Women’s Basketball Coach Pat Summitt and segue into this year’s lengthy, lengthy In Memoriam. What a year.
Oh it’s Chris Berman this is super great. I’m actually super thankful this time when my feed’s audio clicks out. When it resumes we’re in another sketch, this one with Cena and Ben Schwartz auditioning children to bring to press conferences. They, as opposed to Berman, are actually funny and entertaining.
Zaevion Dobson showed the true meaning of sacrifice. He's this year's Arthur Ashe Courage Award honoree.
— ESPN (@espn) July 14, 2016
His story: https://t.co/1j2N9lZHBr
I don’t think I can do justice to this speech. Zenobia Dobson mourns her son and segues into a call for politics “we as a country need to take a stand on gun violence.”
Then Cadillac puts in a plug about how they’re honored to support the Arthur Ashe Award and it’s like a spell is broken.
The teary-eyed audience gives his family a standing ovation. This is just heart-wrenching.
Clips from Obama hammer home the point, as the president says “we owe him” to change the world around him. Dobson’s family comes on stage to accept the award.
It’s hard not to look at this scene, with 15-year old Dobson senselessly shot down while saving the life of two other girls, Faith Gordon & Kiara Rucker, without thinking of the messages from the poignant cold opening. Here we see a handful of lives shattered by gun violence.
The from beyond the grave narrative is combined with interviews with Dobson’s real life friends and relatives. It does a good job in presenting his love of high school football but it feels…
Unnecessary from a dramatic perspective, this story is wrenching enough on its own.
Arthur Ashe Award for Courage
This is going, posthumously, to Zaevion Dobson, who died shielding two girls from gunfire. His story is being told, in a rather odd move, in an invented narration that takes place after his death.
Updated
Rodgers-to-Rodgers Hail Mary wins Best Play
The Green Bay Packers win Best Play for Aaron Rodgers’s Hail Mary throw to Richard Rodgers against the Detroit Lions.
It’s always against the Lions.
“If you’re hurting, whether it’s mental or emotional, if ever you think you’re alone, you’re not.” —@SGTMarks
— ESPN (@espn) July 14, 2016
WATCH: https://t.co/9TOdICMOTL
Best Moment: Cleveland wins
Can’t argue with that. LeBron James accepts the trophy in honor the Cavaliers beating the Cleveland sports curse by beating the Golden State Warriors in the NBA Finals.
And we have a sketch! Future Hannibal Buress does a bit about “the future of sports’ with jokes about the Washington NFL team changing their name to something even more offensive and a Kazaam 2 winning the Oscars joke.
Eric Berry: “You honor the ones that come before you and you leave a legacy for the ones that come behind you”
Best Comeback Athlete: Eric Berry
Kansas City Chiefs cornerback Eric Berry gets the nod for coming back from cancer to play the entire season.
Marks thanks her father and servicemen everywhere ending with “If you’re struggling, you’re hurting, whether it’s physical or emotional... if ever you think you’re alone. You’re not.”
After being injured, Marks became a paralympic swimmer who managed to win medals despite being told she could no longer swim after suffering a coma. She’s still an active service member.
Okay, yeah, there were some tears here.
And we have the Pat Tillman Award for Service, which is going to Sgt. Elizabeth Marks as Cena introduces the pre-taped feature.
This is probably going to be tear-wrenching.
Jake Arrieta wins Best Breakthrough Athlete
Jake Arrieta (Chicago Cubs), Conor McGregor (UFC), Chloe Kim (snowboarder) and Karl-Anthony Towns (Minnesota Timberwolves) are up for Best Breakthrough Athlete. And it’s Jake Arreita, reigning Cy Young winner.
And this is a good time to point out that Carmelo Anthony foreshadowed this opener a bit in the Guardian earlier today with his op-ed.
The emotional opener:
WATCH: "We all have to do better." - @KingJames #ESPYS https://t.co/PsqLjsutZg
— Good Morning America (@GMA) July 14, 2016
Steph Curry was, unsurprisingly, not entirely enthused about the award, musing that he should have made “more when it really counted.”
Steph Curry wins Best Record-Breaking Performance
Russell Wilson and Ciara are out to hand out the first award for Best Record Breaking Performance:
The nominees are Stephen Curry (most three-pointers in a single season), Geno Auriemma (most NCAA basketball titles in D1 history, Christian McCaffrey (single-season NCAA football all-purpose yards).
Of course Steph Curry wins.
And here come the jokes part of the monologue. Kobe and Peyton didn’t make any passes in their final year. Tim Duncan was so boring even his retirement was under the radar. The Rams aren’t good.
Man he’s actually good at this, this is depressing. I couldn’t win even a fixed fight against a stuffed bunny.
Then the monologue turns into about how sports narratives seem to be just as scripted what with LeBron’s redemption via saving Cleveland and Kevin Durant’s subsequent heel turn.
Fair enough, actually.
Oh man Cena is making jokes. He starts with talking about the movie “Trainwreck” and says that it’s about the 2016 Olympics.
It goes over... not well. Which may have been planned, as Cena immediately goes into a pre-planned bit about how he doesn’t expect to be accepted in the crowd because he’s a WWE performer.
And here we have John Cena coming in for... I guess a monologue. Is that how this works?
Cena starts by commending the athletes and then immediately quotes Jimmy V. He knows the crowd.
And we have an extended montage to start to show off proper. Which became vaguely confusing for me because the sound in my feed kicked off at the start of this and I thought they were making a somber, artistic choice.
Continually impressed with this generation of NBA players and their willingness to stand up for what they believe. https://t.co/eYcfD8SnKP
— Rachel Nichols (@Rachel__Nichols) July 14, 2016
And we’ve begun. A somber beginning here as NBA stars Carmelo Anthony, Chris Paul, Dwyane Wade, LeBron James discuss the rash of police violence against black people and speak out about athletes doubling as activists. Powerful words and not how I expected this to begin, well done on the producers’ part.
Note: the ESPYs are still closer to an actual sporting event than the Pro Bowl is.
This is the weirdness of the ESPYs in a nutshell: I’m tempted to treat it like it’s a competition between athletes when it’s really (like most award shows) a celebrity exhibition doubling as a place where already successful people vigorously celebrate themselves.
It’s all the victory lap, no matter who wins or “loses.” But it feels like it should be a competition because that’s what our brains our wired to think when we see sports iconography.
Wow this is way too pretentious. Please let’s just begin the show.
And we have red carpet stuff, I think... I’m, I’m a little out of my element with this.
.@Ciara and @DangeRussWilson make first red carpet appearance as married couple at 2016 #ESPYs: https://t.co/JMkUAWUrbA
— InStyle (@InStyle) July 13, 2016
I think I’m supposed to add something like “no word yet on if Future is attending” here.
Then, there’s also the fact that Joe Biden will handing out the Jimmy V Award for Perseverance to TNT/TBS analyst Craig Sager, who has continued to work through a grim cancer diagnosis. These moments are almost the only highlight of the ESPYs, they’re set to honor the late college basketball legend Jimmy Valvano who’s “Never Give Up, Don’t Ever Give Up Speech” is pretty much one of a handful of moments that it’s basically impossible for sports fans not to have an emotional reaction to.
I won’t lie, as someone who has watched and covered the NBA for the last few years, there’s nobody who has anything to negative to say about Sager, who gained fame for his colorful sideline interviews and even more colorful wardrobe. I don’t expect to keep myself from crying during his segment tonight, no matter how cynical I will pretend to be either before or after it airs.
Also, Justin Timberlake will present an Icon Award to recently retired legends Kobe Bryant, Peyton Manning and Abby Wambach. Bryant’s inclusion here is rather amusing considering Tim Duncan’s uh, much less elaborate retirement announcement has already made Bryant’s two year long retirement tour look somewhat excessive. I’m not sure any of us really needed any more Peyton and Kobe in our lives at this point, but it wouldn’t be ESPN if they didn’t milk them out
Now, having said all that, are there things to look forward to tonight? Heck yeah there is, let’s start with this:
I am honored to say I will be apart of a special tribute to the great Muhammad Ali at tomorrow nights #ESPYS pic.twitter.com/w36F722srj
— Lil Chano From 79th (@chancetherapper) July 13, 2016
First off, I just learned that our very own DJ Gallo is among the writers tonight, so I probably should put this up at the very front: if I make any blanket statements about the quality of tonight’s show just assume they are only referring to things that he had no involvement in whatsoever.
In any case the main critique of the ESPYs is: Why do the ESPYs even exist? After all, sports tend to have a way of figuring out winners or losings: it’s called winning and losing. The good news is that we can compare feats between other sports, which is an ultimate exercise is comparing apples to oranges. Remember when “The Martian” won for best musical or comedy? Imagine that for an entire awards show.
Well, part of the answer was that this is the one day of the year where there’s basically no sports going on in the US. It’s the day after the MLB All-Star Game, the NFL and the NBA have finished their seasons, the NFL has yet to begin. There are no college sports because, well, it’s July. The NBA Summer League is a bit of a non-starter. So, it’s a perfect time for ESPN to have some self-promotion, even better if they can get another channel (ABC) to broadcast it.
By the way, they apparently stand for “Excellence in Sports Performance Yearly” which sure sounds like they came up with the word “ESPY” first and then attempted to squeeze it in. John Cena is hosting and from what I know second-hand from pro wrestling fans about him is that he’s probably the WWE’s most popular wrestler despite the fact nobody anybody knows is an actual fan of his which sounds about right for ESPN.
Preamble
Hello all, a confession here first of all.
I’ve never watched a full broadcast of the ESPYs before, so this will be a new challenge. Experience. My biggest knowledge of the show comes from various clips which have reached maximum clip show rotation, mainly on ESPN.
Now, among those that I watched was Caitlyn Jenner’s moving speech last year and… listen sometimes you write something in the heat of the moment and time ends up making you look like a fool. I wrote something that expressed hope that Jenner would use her wealth and fame to help the less fortunate in the trans community.
Instead, she has been spending most of her time recently stumping for Donald Trump. I won’t lie, this probably is my biggest swing-and-miss as a writer here at the Guardian, and I just predicted the Miami Heat as free agency winners by saying they’d definitely keep Dwyane Wade.
In my defense, the segment that led up to the speech, and Jenner’s speech itself. were magnificently put together, hitting all the right beats. The full forces of ABC came together to put together a perfect piece of emotional manipulation, it was easy to get caught up in it as I expect we will several times tonight.
It’s not their fault that the real world, as often happens, ended up being much messier than the version of heightened reality we get on award shows like this.
Hunter will be here shortly.
