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Legend moves on
Man, maybe the Lord needs Heaven’s cable network overhauled.
Ted Turner died Wednesday. He was 87.
There is no adjective too strong for the eccentric Turner, a McCallie grad and philanthropist who truly changed the world.
Look, we all have impacts in our life. We change the worlds of the people in our lives. We hope those changes are meaningful, positive and remembered.
That’s the legacy we leave, and it’s the measure of our time here.
Those singular ripples make families and communities and even regions better.
Turner was global tsunami who is among the most influential people since World War II.
And that’s not overstatement or hyperbole, friends.
Look, Steven Jobs has connected all of us. And Apple is, well, Apple.
But Turner is not that far behind.
Turner overhauled cable television before Jobs was even contemplating the transformation to Stevie Appleseed.
TBS was the first superstation. Yes, we had it in Smyrna (Channel 17; it was our fourth option), and TVs everywhere went from four to 40 TV options incredibly quickly by comparison.
That was Turner and his satellite revolution.
TBS led to CNN, which was guffawed and mocked initially. But that, several years after ESPN, aligned the specialization of cable programming.
Think of the specific channels at your fingertips.
Shopping channels. Crime channels. History channels. Game Show Network. You get the idea, and it became an across-all-genres idea because of Turner and CNN.
Yes, ESPN may have been all-sports, all-the-time before CNN was hatched, but ESPN was a) after TBS, and b) thought to be a niche product that only sports lovers would love.
No one thought 24-hour news could work.
(Side note here: I truly believe that Turner grew to hate the corners CNN and Fox sprinted to during the cable news wars. You can’t change my mind on that, because as passionate and driven and opinionated as Turner was, this was not part of his charm or his charisma. And he was flush with both. Oh yes, he could be a hard-line businessman — billionaires always are — but he was reportedly always open to smart ideas and discussions. Something we are agonizingly in short supply of these days.)
So, being the godfather of cable TV is a legacy that merits full-blown, old-school newspaper obituaries written by staff members, not funeral directors.
But now think about this:
Turner is a no-brain choice on the Cable TV Rushmore.
He also is a far-left contender on the sports broadcasting Rushmore, the MLB owners Rushmore and the Rushmore of all sports owners over the last 100 years.
Turner bought the Braves in 1976, and in the half century since a bona fide laughingstock has become a bastion of success.
He took baseball to the masses with TBS, creating Braves Nation and a brand that folks older than me could have never envisioned.
The Braves were trash, even with Hank Aaron toiling away for a team that annually was closer to DFL than a pennant.
And the impact was noticed by teams, leagues, sports, networks and America.
He turned the Braves into programming, and that programming allowed him to turn the Braves into a program that contended every year.
For wins. For players. For everything.
The modern arms race for TV deals continues to be the product of Turner’s game-changing belief that even the lowly Braves were valuable TV programming. Know this: Turner bought the Braves in ’76 with $1 million down and a plan to pay off the other $9-$11 million over the next nine years, according to the New York Times.
Yeah, look at what sports franchises – especially the Braves — are worth today, and every owner of every sports team needs to have his team’s next home game have a moment of silence for Ted Turner.
The man was a visionary, an innovator and leaves this world a titan across multiple arenas.
OK, that got lengthy. Yikes.
But it was needed.
Yes, I know there are a slew of Turner tributes everywhere — heck, even the Mariners had a moment of silence before they beat the Braves on Wednesday night — but still.
Meaningless rankings
So let’s tighten up and lighten up, shall we? I think we shall.
Because I fall into these rabbit holes doing research for things like this, well, this one had me pondering, so I wanted folks to weigh in on it.
Here’s a Twitter list of the best single-season college football teams of all time. Fire away.
Much to Vader’s delight, 2019 LSU is listed as one, and they are hard to argue against.
The 2001 Miami team at 4 would like a word.
But there are a slew of inconsistencies here.
Yes, there is the 1945 Army team on there, which is fine because Army at that time would have won whatever the 1945 version of the NFC South was. (Heck, 1945 Army may have won the 2025 version of the NFC South, for Pete Rozelle’s sake.)
But if you are going to open the history books, then how in the name of everything pigskin are the 1939 UT Vols not listed. They finished the regular season with a scoring margin of 212-0.
Yes, that stat is accurate.
There are several non-national-title-winning teams on the list like 2006 Boise State and 2004 Auburn, which seems distorted, too.
Which makes the omission of the ’39 Viols — who lost the Rose Bowl 14-0 to USC — even more egregious.
Thoughts?
Putting the blue in Big Blue Nation
It’s put up or shut up time for Mark Pope, funny hat notwithstanding.
And maybe he should do more of the latter while focusing on the former.
The UK hoops coach is always on the hot seat in some circles. That’s the size and tradition of the gig.
Pope is assuredly no different. But in this day and age when paying players is OK, and you’re going to share that last year’s underachieving crew cost the program $22 million, well, it’s Final Four or bust for Pope and the Wildcats.
And the early returns are not promising.
In the recent portal cycle, 14 of the top-20 ranked players visited UK. Pope signed none of them, including one who visited UK and picked Kansas. That’s a big deal because allegedly said player is a Nike fan and Kansas — likely the most prized school in the Adidas family — has allowed him to wear Nikes anytime he wants other than games.
The roster construction is critical and painful for Pope, because traditional Blue Blood programs always think star players want to go to their school because of tradition.
Yes, that has changed in the portal era to an extent, but when the Blue Bloods like UK are paying $22 million to the players, then what the bleep?
So those questions are pertinent and powerful.
Then comes the knucklenoggin idea of Pope fielding live questions from the disgruntled masses on the interweb. Yeah, no way this ends poorly, right? Here’s the link, and buckle up.
This and that
> As mentioned above, the Braves played. The Braves lost. It happens. Seattle taking two of three is the Braves’ first series loss of the season. That coming on May 7 is pretty impressive.
> So the most recent odds release from futures betting market Kalshi has Marco Rubio as the favorite to win the 2028 presidential election.
> Golden Tempo — the Kentucky Derby winner — will skip the Preakness. Yep, that cripples the ratings for the Preakness and the Belmont. Is this good for horse racing? Mr. Ed says, “Neigh.”
> Uh, yeah, more Vrabel-Russini smoke, which very likely could lead to Vrabel getting fired from the New England Patriots. Side question for the group: Do you think the Titans knew of this and that’s why they parted ways? Discuss.
> Sad news here as former South Carolina QB1 Stephen Garcia has stage 4 colon cancer.
> Rules, people. Here’s Paschall with some UT football goodness.
> Here’s our latest podcast on SEC football at SE16.
Today’s questions
It’s the ol’ AGT — Anything Goes Thursday — so we’re game.
True or false on a Thursday: Mark Pope is the UK coach of Kentucky basketball this time next year.
Also, what’s the best word to describe Ted Turner? Side note: Meant to mention this above, but considering the TBS lineup was Braves baseball and a litany of reruns from Mayberry, the Bradys’ casa and “Gilligan’s Island,” is Turner also kinda of the father of syndication as a programming primary?)
What college football team is the best over the last 50 years? Discuss.
What are your thoughts on the above list of best college football teams of all time?
Fire away with your AGTs, be they for today or for Friday’s bag.
As for today — May 7 — let’s review.
Big day for prizes: In 1867, Alfred Nobel patented dynamite (explosive invention, right, Spy?), and in 1912 Columbia University approved Joseph Pulitzer’s idea for a newspaper award with his name.
The Lusitania was sunk on this day in 1915, which jump-started WWI.
Nazi Germany surrendered on this day in 1945.
MrBeast is 28 today. Ask your kids, but dude has crushed the interwebs.
Johnny U would have been 93 today.
As for our Rushmore, in honor of Turner, what is the Rushmore of all-time cable channels. (Also, with an AGT twist, if you could only keep four channels on your dial — back when 17 made four in Smyrna — what four are you selecting?)
Go and remember the mailbag.