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NCAA Lacrosse Tournament: ESPN Tells You How ESPN Intends to Do ESPN's Job

There's something fishy about all of this.

USA TODAY Sports

ESPN isn't a television network that broadcasts things through your furniture that displays moving pictures. No, it's more than that -- ESPN is a highly profitable surveillance and information gathering firm that conceals its true corporate purpose through its sports-oriented programming. I'm serious! If ESPN -- an acronym for "Engaged Surveillance of Persons Natural" -- isn't a private business concern with a pursuit similar to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, how do you explain the company's plan to monitor Championship Weekend in Philadelphia:

The SkyCam returns for the fourth year to the NCAA Division I Men’s Lacrosse Championship on ESPN Saturday, May 25, and Monday, May 27, from Philadelphia. SkyCam footage will be used throughout the weekend telecasts. For Monday’s title game, an isolated feed -- Live SkyCam Presentation -- can be seen on ESPNU, ESPN3 and WatchESPN, including announcer audio and replays.

The semifinals will be on ESPN2 and WatchESPN as No. 7 seed Duke faces unseeded Cornell at 2:30 p.m., followed by top-seeded Syracuse against No. 4 seed Denver at 5 p.m. The National Championship game will air Monday at 1 p.m. on ESPN and WatchESPN. Eamon McAnaney will call the action with analyst Quint Kessenich and sideline reporter/analyst Paul Carcaterra.

So, just to recap: ESPN will deploy three field agents -- that we know about -- to Lincoln Financial Field to relay the positions and actions of the observed (old fashioned on-the-ground intelligence gathering); the company will utilize air-based surveillance technology to stealthily capture the movements of persons of interest in case those individuals attempt to evade spying eyes; and the agency will have dedicated feeds on separate devices and platforms -- in function, to create a bank of security cameras, ensuring unmitigated vigilance -- to allow for simultaneous monitoring of visuals. This is sophisticated surveillance through a highly complex infrastructure of intelligence-gathering operatives and methods.

Are you still not convinced? Do you think this is merely a conspiracy theory and that a copy of "Catcher in the Rye" exists somewhere on my person? The following additional features of EPSN's surveyance of the Final Four provides the further proof necessary to finally uncork the truth about the "network":

  • Microphones Everywhere: ESPN will outfit all three officials with microphones -- face it: they're wearing a wire -- and place microphones on the field (attached to goals and in other specified areas). Based on this information, it is clear that the officials for this weekend are actually embedded ESPN agents and that the company's plan to canvass the field with microphones -- to collect audio intelligence, of course -- is a lot easier than putting three guys in a warehouse across the street and having them point a long microphone at the stadium. ESPN thinks it's so clever, but the truth will not be hidden!
  • ESPN will use nine cameras -- plus SkyCam and a Super Slo Motion camera -- to collect information about the public-private pursuits of various marks. On the field, in the sky, everywhere else in the building -- this is 360-degree surveillance; there are no backdoors to escape through like in "The Departed." ("They knew you had cameras in the building. They knew everything, alright!")
  • On Monday, ESPN will haul in two more known agents -- Mark Dixon and Anish Shroff -- to provide support to ESPN's efforts. They are presumed to act as tools of deception, acting as face-forward distractions to further obfuscate ESPN's true purpose.

It's all starting to make sense now, right? ESPN has utilized the Patriot Act as its pivot point to gather intelligence. This is important stuff.