Is ESPN too close to subjects it covers?
Don Day July 16th, 2007
As the self-titled Worldwide Leader in Sports has grown from a small cable outlet to a mammoth media empire, ESPN’s relationship with sports leagues has evolved. Newsweek has a roundup of all the knocks the sports giant has taken over the past week - including the loss of Dan Patrick, its booting from the All Star Game and a few cheesy SportsCenter features. As the network snuggles up to the leagues with big money deals, its news arm must continue to cover those same leagues. “Imagine CNN paying billions of dollars for exclusive … rights to cover the War in Iraq,” ESPN’s ombudsman Le Anne Schreiber wrote. “At ESPN, Conflict of Interest is Business as Usual.”
5 Comments Add your own
1. Brink | July 16th, 2007 at 7:47 pm
Sportsguys want to be both fans and journalists. That’s not posible, and ESPN’s a great example of why. Just try to get a sports “reporter” to ask the hard questions of a pro athlete accused of a crime. They won’t do it. Try to get them to boycott or otherwise protest leagues’ unreasonable TV/web rights rules. Won’t do that either.
Nope. ESPN demonstrates clearly the problem with most sports “journalists:” They’re not.
2. Howard CoSELL | July 16th, 2007 at 8:54 pm
Stuart Scott is tops at not asking hardball questions. He’s also annoying as hell.
ESPN could air a tremendous Outside the Lines piece on all that is wrong with collegiate sports. How about stories on college athletes who never made it to the pros and suffer from the effects of their collegiate athletic years (read: no insurance out of school).
Vitale praises Knight, but let’s see him fully deride him for his unprofessional behavior. What about the graduation rates for all schools and their athletes?
Michael Irvin is now gone from ESPN, but they hired him and aired Miami Hurricanes’ games. Irvin was a part of the era when thuggery came into college sports, emanating from society. They also put Keyshawn Johnson on the air — another player who has to have all the attention.
Bring back Bob Ley and Tom Mees is sorely missed. And bring back Aussie Rules football. This is where players play and prima donnas get smacked hard.
3. Wes | July 17th, 2007 at 7:20 am
ESPN really has become to sports what MTV is to music. They don’t care about sports anymore, they care about its image.
4. John | July 17th, 2007 at 10:17 am
Three good comments above. I agree with all of them. Sportscenter stopped being cool the minute Stu Scott arrived. Dan and Keith were solid, and Kenny Mayne was nice too. But Stu is way too annoying and is one of those many broadcast journalists — sports or otherwise — who tries to turn every story into one about him. “I talked to Mike after the Bulls wrapped up the Eastern Conference Finals.” OK, we get it, you know Michael Jordan.
And that adverzine they put out every two weeks — I can’t believe I’m going to admit this, but — I was a charter subscriber. Stu’s been doing those Bump-N-Run pieces where he straddles both sides of every fence in the form of a weak sports question from another moron reader. Stu can never say anything critical about an athlete. Wouldn’t want a 40-year-old “journalist” to lose his street cred.
Berman has needed to go for at least a decade as well. His size 52 pastel jackets were never in when they were in. And wow, a Home Run Derby. Cool, we get to hear, “Back back back back back” 90 more times. What do you expect at a Home Run Derby? Squeeze bunts?
But since he’s With Leather, the shallow culture continues to embrace him and his tired nicknames and “He could go all the way.” Puke.
Ley and Mees were indeed solid. I liked Kilborne too until he revealed his true colors on his own TV show, nothing more than an audition for which bad singer/actress/model he got to sleep with later than night. That dude was smarmy and I’m glad not to see him on TV.
Great MTV analogy. A popular coaching cliche is that you dance with who brung ya, but MTV and ESPN abandoned those things long ago. “Who’s Now?” is weak and when is the next milestone episode of SportsCenter? 30,000 must be around the corner. Cool, we get to see those Charley Steiner on-cam fits of laughter and Carl Lewis mangle the national anthem.
Sorry for the rant. Don’t even get me started.
Sincerely,
Molly Shannon
5. Blimey | July 17th, 2007 at 12:20 pm
Wow, it’s just sports. Chillax
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