Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Could The ESPN ESPY Awards Have Survived Without Justin Bieber?

In the Hollywood world of award shows it’s all about ratings. If your show doesn’t have the viewers you don’t have an award show for long.

So tonight during the two hour ESPY red carpet special leading up to the big awards show, we were shocked at how important of a role Justin Bieber seemed to play.

That’s right – Justin Bieber.

Some people know Justin plays basketball, ice hockey, and soccer – but most know him for his music.

To be fair, Bieber did win the MVP at last year’s NBA All-Star game, but the Wednesday night ESPN ESPY’s were supposed to be all about the athletes and the sport – not Justin Bieber.

Related: Justin Bieber wins NBA All-Star Award – Video

The sad facts:

During the two hour pre-show, Bieber’s name was dropped 46 times by the hosts and interviewers.

Forty six times. Do you believe that?

His name was mentioned more than any other athlete.

Every time they went to a commercial they said, “When we come back we’ll have Justin Bieber on the red carpet….”

Forty six times.

In fact, when the pop star did appear the host told him the crowd had cheered more for him than ANY of the athletes walking the red carpet.

Really?

Forty six times.

How awkward was it to watch grown men drop his name in what seemed like an effort to hype the show.

Forty six times.

At one point the host read a viewer’s email asking who was the most anticipated red carpet walker and he joked “Maybe Justin Bieber”.

Forty six times.

Is that what it takes to get the viewers to tune in? Do adult male sports fanatics really care?

No.

The bottom line is if Bieber would not have walked the red carpet during the preshow their probably wouldn’t have been any show.

But you can sell a lot of advertising during a two hour warm up.

Forty six times.

Sad.

I hope Seth Meyers doesn’t have 50 Bieber jokes ready to go – but I bet he has a few.

And they better not point the camera on him during the actual show every 5 seconds.

And I hope the award winners don’t drop his name just to get the audience to scream – they may be disappointed.

We were.

Forty six times.

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