SportsCenter “TitleTown USA” Panel Members Announced

By admin - Posted on May 20th, 2008

Nationwide Search Underway to Determine America’s Top Championship City

May 19, 2008 -- A panel of 33 journalists from ESPN and across the country will pare down the list of nominations for ESPN’s SportsCenter “TitleTown USA” – an interactive and multimedia effort to determine which city, town or municipality will be declared America’s top championship city by fans this summer. The panel features 12 SportsCenter anchors and 21 accomplished media professionals from top daily newspapers and television outlets.

The 2008 SportsCenter summer initiative began Wednesday, April 9, with online nominations by fans at http://proxy.espn.go.com/espn/titletown/index. Fans submitted nearly 2,000 individual nominations before the deadline last Friday. The series’ executive production team will select the top-50 entries for the panel of judges to determine the 23 cities, including Green Bay, Wisc., which will compete for the “Title.”

Highlights

* Play-in Week: Beginning Monday, May 26, through Friday, May 30, the last four cities (ranked Nos. 19 – 23) selected by the panel will compete for the final spot via special online fan voting. The winning city, solely based on fans’ online votes on ESPN.com, will then round out the list of 20 “TitleTown USA”;
* Anouncing the Finalists: Each weekday, June 2 – 27, a “TitleTown” finalist will be revealed and profiled on all editions of SportsCenter, beginning at 6 p.m. ET;
* SportsCenter will visit one city daily beginning with Green Bay Friday, July 4, through Wed., July 23;
* After SportsCenter has visited all the 20 cities, towns or municipalities, picked via a combination of fan nominations, panel selection and fan voting for the play-in finalist, the fans will again select the winner by visiting ESPN.com to cast their votes online (July 23 – 26);
* Sunday, July 27 – Live announcement of “TitleTown USA” on SportsCenter, including presence form winning town.

Sportscenter anchors on the panel include: John Anderson, John Buccigross, Linda Cohn, Josh Elliott, Neil Everett, Jay Harris, Steve Levy, Brian Kenny, Chris McKendry, Stuart Scott, Scott Van Pelt and Stan Verrett.

Following is a list of all other panelists and their affiliations.

SportsCenter “TitleTown USA” Panel

Name
Affiliation

Wendell Barnhouse
College Football Writer/Columnist, Ft. Worth Star-Telegram

Paola Boivin
Columnist, Arizona Republic

Steve Buckley
Columnist, Boston Herald

Chad Cripe
Writer, Idaho Statesman

Rick Dean
Writer, Topeka Capital-Journal writer

Pat Dooley
Columnist, Gainesville Sun

Rick Gosselin
NFL writer, Dallas Morning News

Dave Hyde
Columnist, South Florida Sun-Sentinel

John Ireland
Sports Anchor, KCAL TV – Los Angeles