ESPN Seeks Celebrity Status

This week ESPN has announced that it will begin a "Who's Now" segment to be featured on SportsCenter episodes in July. Viewers will be able to vote online and via text messaging in a tournament bracket format to determine which of the 32 athletes is the hottest in the business.

This reminds me of the brief run of ESPN Hollywood, the show that could best be described as a marriage between SportsCenter and Entertainment Tonight. It attempted to cover the glamourous side of sports and the lifestyle afforded by athlete's multi-million dollar salaries. The show did not appeal to the target demographic of the network, and only a few episodes ever made it to air. Although ESPN Hollywood was a flop from a ratings standpoint, it may be looked back upon in several years as a visionary effort that was just a little bit ahead of its time.

With last week's New York Post front-page story featuring Alex Rodriguez of the Yankees and a mystery woman he had been seen with, athletes may be set to experience a different level of celebrity status in the future. Lebron James, Tom Brady and other professional athletes may soon see themselves competing with the likes of Paris Hilton, Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston for space on the front page of the tabloids. As the line separating celebrities and professional athletes becomes increasingly blurry, ESPN will likely continue to experiment to cash in on this in the future.