And just like that we’re done! Peyton Manning barely gets a chance to say goodnight as the credits roll. Thanks for following along with tonight’s ESPYs liveblog here at the Guardian. Ciao!
Updated
Best Team: Golden State Warriors
Samuel L. Jackson, I feel, has presented in all 25 ESPYs Awards. It should be true at least. He presents Best Team: He says “please not them” a few times before saying “it’s not them!” It’s the Golden State Warriors. Steph Curry gives the speech, Kevin Durant stays silent, Zaza Pachulia says “Two words: Nothing Easy.”
The cameraman who put the camera right on Kevin Durant as Westbrook went up to accept his award should be up for an ESPYs next year.
Best Male Athlete: Russell Westbrook, Oklahoma City Thunder
Russell Wilson and Lindsey Vonn present Best Male Athlete and… Hey, Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man.” Good choice. And an appropriate one since the award goes to Russell Westbrook.
Yes there’s an awkward shot of Kevin Durant. Westbrook thanks his teammates. For what? I couldn’t tell you.
Best Female Athlete: Simone Biles
Here’s Abby Wambach to present Best Female Athlete which goes to Simone Biles. And rightfully so, honestly. Biles thanks her fans, “thank you for believing in me.It means the world to me.” Short and sweet.
Alright I promised that I would be on the lookout for Jeff Horn for our Australian readers. He is here but I haven’t seen him on camera, although rumor has it that he’s there to find and have words with Stephen A. Smith.
Touched down in Los Angeles for the ESPYs! World champ boxer Jeff Horn says he's sad he missed Origin match. True Queenslander.@9NewsAUS pic.twitter.com/2ycer1xk5q
— Alexis Daish (@LexiDaish) July 13, 2017
Her son, Tim Schriver accepts the award on her behalf of his late mother. “Our mother would have loved you,” he says to Ms. Obama,”I”m sorry she’s not here to accept it… but in another way she’s here… in the hearts and minds of millions of Special Olympic athletes…. We’ve got a lot of work to do for equality and we will not stop until we have equality for 250 million people who have intellectual disabilities.”
This video history of the Special Olympics is exactly what the ESPYs does the best, telling stories about how the intersection between sports and the human spirit.
Arthur Ashe Award for Courage: Eunice Kennedy Schriver
And here’s Michelle Obama out to give the Arthur Ashe Award for Courage, and talk about someone I miss almost as much as Vin Scully. She’s here award to Eunice Kennedy founder of the Special Olympics.
Best Play: Aaron Rodgers to Jared Cook
Aaron Rodgers wins for shortest speech.
Icon Award: Vin Scully
And we get to hear Vin Scully talk one time. He says “Hi everybody and a very pleasant good evening to you” one more time, thanks Cranston for flying in and out of New York in a day for him. “I don’t have a relative in the world who who would do that” and gives us one last bit of wisdom: “God gave us memories so we can have roses in December.”
“Vin Scully was summer,” Cranston says, and that about sums it up, although he keeps going. He does his best to pay tribute to Scully with the purplest of prose, but he has to know that he’s attempting the impossible here, as nobody but Vin Scully can do justice for Vin Scully.
And thankfully that’s what we get next, a montage of his best calls.
Peyton Manning makes a return appearance to welcome Bryan Cranston who’s here to pay tribute to Vin Scully.
Chris Berman comes in to pay tribute to the late John Saunders and introduce the “Those We Lost” montage. Which will almost certainly make me cry here.
Best Championship Performance: Kevin Durant
Kevin Durant has a chance to shout back at Peyton Manning but just accepts his award with a few thanks and then walks off. Definitely isn’t having as much fun as everybody else here
Robertson is giving the most charismatic “thank you” speech of the night, including shout outs to the WWE and LSU. His father paid tribute to the donor who gave his son the liver that he received and encourages the audience to sign up and become a donor… and Jarrius promptly grabs the award and shouts “Become an organ donor!” with an infectious amount of glee.
Over the years, Robertson has become a constant presence at sporting events, beaming with life despite constantly fighting for it, battling immense pain. “This young man is what Never Give Up is all about,” John Cena says.
Jimmy V. Perseverance Award:Jarrius Robertson
Last year’s host John Cena comes out for the Jimmy V. Perseverance Award to Jarrius Robertson, a young man who has been fighting for his life nearly his entire existence.
The only joke to this sketch is Peyton Manning getting more and more miserable as the Patriots mount the comeback. I give it a 10 out of 10. (Note: I am liveblogging from Somerville,MA and this may be a factor in the grading.)
Best Game: Patriots/Falcons Super Bowl
It’s Snoop Dogg. I’m so old that I almost typed Snoop Doggy Dogg there. I’m just going to assume that they’re going to give it to the Patriots winning the Super Bowl with the biggest comeback in NFL postseason history.
And yep, and hey a pretty decent line. “Peyton Manning’s kinda killing it. We are indoors though.”
And that leads right to “Peyton Manning’s Super Bowl Party” skit.
And here’s Dave Ross, doing an incredibly slow party dance. “I think I just saw a passed ball,” jokes Nick Offerman. This feels less like a comedy sketch and more like a scene from a Samuel Beckett play. More disquieting than funny and, honestly, 100% appropriate for the surreality of living in a world where the Cubs are world champions.
Best Moment: Chicago Cubs win World Series
Nick Offerman comes out to introduce a montage about the Chicago Cubs finally winning the World Series. All I know is that we all joked that the Cubs winning it all would be a sign that the end of the world was at hand… well we can’t say that anything that has happened afterward has disproved this theory.
Oh and here comes Bill Murray to accept this award, because why not?
And now the ESPYs celebrate…. themselves. I guess since it’s the 25th annual ESPYs, it deserves to have a montage for itself. Plenty of tearjerking moments in this montage.
Meanwhile, social media has zeroed in on Kevin Durant’s not-so-pleased reaction to Peyton Manning’s opening monologue zinger:
"Our gymnastics team was so dominant that Kevin Durant told me he wants to play for them next year" -- Peyton
— Whitney Medworth (@its_whitney) July 13, 2017
I AM CRYING. pic.twitter.com/wOurH8NXoL
Hurley accepts his award on behalf of high school coaches all across America. It’s very well-intentioned on behalf of the ESPYs if a tad awkwardly truncated.
Best Coach: Bob Hurley Sr.
Candace Parker is up next, paying a brief tribute to Pat Summitt before introducing a video about Bob Hurley, long-time coach of St. Anthony’s High School basketball coach.
“I will never fucking quit on you! This is my promise, this is my pledge.” Quote of the evening right there from Sgt. Del Toro.
The accompanying video details how Del Toro managed to rejoin the Air Force. Which is beyond incredible, as is the reception he gets from the crowd when he makes his way to the stage to accept the award. It’s moments like these that really make the ESPYs worth watching, not the silly sketches and occasionally spurious categories.
Jon Stewart makes an appearance to award the Pat Tillman Award for Service to Master Sgt. Israel Del Toro, who was severely injured in Afghanistan and went on to compete in adaptive sports.
And we have a comedy sketch. The joke here is that Peyton Manning is retired so he now lives in a retirement home. So the joke is that he’s acting like an old person even though he’s incredibly fit. It’s….
Let’s move on.
Record-Breaking Performance: Michael Phelps
Danica Patrick and Richard Sherman give out the next award. “Record-Breaking Performance.” After unnerving footage of Bill Belichick set to Katy Perry’s “Roar,” they announce the winner as Michael Phelps who (in a very laid-back speech) notes that he met his wife at the ESPYs ten years ago.
A note: It’s usually pretty easy to guess who won most of these awards because they’re the ones who actually show up. (Spoiler alert?)
Breakthrough Athlete: Dak Prescott, Dallas Cowboys
Elisabeth Olsen and Jeremy Renner present the first award of the night. It’s Breakthrough Athlete. It goes to Dak Prescott who took over from Tony Romo this year
I will say this, as a Patriots fan, Peyton Manning is the greatest SNL host NFL history and he’s killing it, a huge improvement over John Cena last year (who wasn’t awful). He’s doing the “I’m not going to rip on my fellow athletes” routines, while saying the jokes that he says he’s not going to say. It’s an oldie but a goodie. He takes a few shots. “And because I’m forced to say it, I love that Tom Brady and Bill Belichick (won again).” Okay he’s won me over.
We have fun with the ESPYs but one thing that they always get right is the opening montage where they feature the best moments of the year, perfectly edited together. I have a bit of a tear in my eye.
Oh and here’s Peyton Manning. That puts an end to it.
Alright we’re moments away from the show’s beginning. I hope everybody’s made their prop bets. (Note: I hope that I am making up this concept and that ESPY prop bets don’t actually exist.)
Let nobody tell you Mike Conley isn’t worth every penny of that contract.
Grizzlies guard Mike Conley might have the best suit at the #ESPYs and is here pictured with hip-hop artist @thedanteryan. pic.twitter.com/erInyp0IHj
— Marc J. Spears (@MarcJSpearsESPN) July 12, 2017
Hall of Fame Quarterback Peyton Manning will be hosting tonight, as he continues his decades-long takeover of all forms of media, almost certainly as part of a scheme to launch his inevitable political career. Perhaps he will end up being VP under President The Rock or President Kid Rock.
Preamble
The ESPYs are an event that probably wouldn’t exist in a sane, logical world. Sports, more than anything else on the planet, don’t need an awards show. The whole point of sports is that they themselves determine the winners and losers right then and there, there’s no need to hold a vote later on.
But as literally every event of the last year has proven, we do not live in anything that even remotely resembles a sane, logical world, and the ESPYs have in fact become a genuinely meaningful event (in as much as anything has meaning anymore). Some of it is simply because it occupies a day on the calendar, immediately after the MLB All-Star Game, that would otherwise be essentially sports-free. Mostly though because the ESPYs will occasionally produce unforgettable moments. While we may not remember who won what last year, we all will remember the emotional, inspirational speech the late Craig Sager gave. It’s incredibly easily to be cynical about the ESPYs, in fact that will probably be at least 60-70% of my commentary tonight will be snarky or flat-out sarcastic in nature, which it makes it all the more impressive about how the producers are regularly able to discover pockets of genuine heartfelt sincerity in what should be just a a parade of shameless self-promotion.
In any case, we’ll hope there will be memorable moments tonight, whether they be deeply moving ones or instantly regrettable ones that will unleash a nonstop wave of mockery over the course of the next news cycle. Either will work for our purposes. You want to join in the conversation? You can send your commentary via email (to Hunter.Felt@theguardian.com) or Twitter (@HunterFelt) and we’ll include it in this liveblog.
Hunter will be here shortly. In the meantime, here’s how some of this year’s nominees distinguished themselves over the past 12 months:
