I hope the censors don't catch this one because ESPN has become the worst four-letter word in sports. If Wayne Gretzky called the Disney owned company a "mickey mouse" organization, you'd never know about it because let's face it they never cover hockey. What was once the great "Big Show" with the likes of Keith Olbermann and Dan Patrick has turned into a "Big Soap Opera," so much so that Vince McMahon should sue for copyright infringement.
Here is a bevy of reasons why I cannot stand ESPN:
1.) Brett Favre, Brett Favre, Brett Favre. Oh sure they've done this before with Michael Jordan and Roger Clemens, but I don't need to hear from everyone from Chris Mortensen to Joe Beercan from Madison, Wisconsin on every single angle possible. Here's something that takes ten seconds boys and girls, if he's not playing he's retired, if he's playing, he's playing, just let me know that and I'm fine ok.
2.) Gimmicks. What do I mean by gimmicks? Does "Title Town" come to mind? How about "Who's Now?" Remember what a doozie that one was?
3.) The so-called "experts." You know the self-aggrandizing ex-jocks and or execs. who think that since they played the game that they know everything and that you're too stupid to know anything because you never played the game. Steve Phillips has to be the worst, John Kruk is pretty awful and Sean Salisbury a scrub quarterback and self-proclaimed know-it-all, Mel Kiper Jr. and I can keep going on and on and on.
4.) The Rush Limbaugh wannabees. In fact ESPN even went so far as to hire Rush awhile back, while I don't agree ideologically with Mr. Limbaugh, he at least is an expert at his craft. However a lot of these personalities on ESPN are trying to be edgy and opinionated and in your face just for the sake doing it. Names that come to mind are Stephen A. "everything I have to say is important," Jemele "racist" Hill, Skip "clueless" Bayless, etc.
5.) Virtually no hockey highlights. I understand you don't cover the sport ESPN, but show me some highlights.
6.) Same old story, same old song and dance. Favre, T.O., Barry Bonds, A-Rod, Manny, Spygate, Steroids. Can a man get some sports highlights please?
7.) Poker all the time, even on ESPN Classic. Remember when ESPN Classic (formerly classic sports) used to actually show classic games and events?
8.) They even managed to ruin ESPN News! I used to flip over there to get away from the garbage, apparently someone found out because I can't escape it there either.
9.) Kobe and Shaq soap opera. Fine so the Shaq rapping video was funny, but I don't need 20 minutes of analysis on it. Heck as a Celtics fan it almost cost me a championship, because Paul Pierce almost blew out his knee slipping on all of that drool they were foistering on Kobe.
10.) ESPN2 has become irrelevant.
11.) ESPN original entertainment. Memo to ESPN, you are not HBO and you never will be.
12.) Showing 20 minutes of NFL Live in June instead of an hour of Baseball Tonight.
13.) My wish segments. Great captivating stories, very well done packages, but does it belong on an "all sports network?"
14.) Firing Harold Reynolds over nothing. He must've been too good and too knowledgeable for that network.
15.) The Outdoor Games. Stop trying to force people to like stuff and stop pretending that they actually do or care.
16.) Fake news conferences, especially using that fake baseball GM Steve Phillips.
17.) ESPN deportes on SportsCenter. If ESPN deportes was so great, I'd be watching it right now. But oh yeah funny thing is, I never do!
18.) The fact that they still cover the WNBA as if someone other than lesbians are still watching.
19.) Their eye candy isn't hot enough to be that stupid. If you're going to have attractive people on that don't know what they're talking about that's fine, just make sure that they can at least hack it in the SI Swimsuit Issue ok?
20.) Disney owns them and Disney is evil, need I say more?
So I'm thinking you're OK with ESPN the Magazine? This was spot on Mike. Great scribble. At some point when full contact Parchesi is eating up 4-hour blocks of ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNWhatever we'll know sports as we love it is finally and completely dead...how about the only two baseball teams they broadcast, the Yanks and the BoSox? If those two teams have a bad season in common there'd be no MLB games televised on ESPN that year...and you're right Baseball Tonight turned into a mish-mash of non-baseball highlights and scores. It should be called "A minute of baseball crammed into 59 minutes of ####."
Good job. I don't like the direction that their sports coverage is taking either. Then again, there is not much about television I do like anymore. No imagination, just a lot of pandering.
Mike Gwizdala
There may well be only one or two programs that I for one am willing to watch on ESPN. And those are the magazine programs Outside The Lines and E 60 but beyond that I can take it or leave it. They've made themselves such a behemoth that in many ways their journalistic integrity and identity has all been but lost over the last couple of years. And it's now become a circus of clowns who feel that their biased opinions and total lack of credibilily is enough to entice the viewers at times. In many ways watching ESPN is no different from watching C-SPAN. The only thing though that you'll learn from watching C-SPAN is that you're watching a bunch of lying crooks . In the case of ESPN you're watching a bunch of clowns the vast majority of the time.
I loved this piece! Here are my takes on your takes:
1. Totally agree. I'm doing a parody post about that later. Check it out!
2. At least they didn't have Berman doing them.
3. At least Salisbury was canned!
4. Stephen A. and Skip should have stuck to newspaper columns.
5. Both ESPN and the NHL seem to hate each other. It's sad, really.
6. Agreed.
7. Exactly. Get that "stuff" off of there!
8. It was bound to happen.
9. Don't care about it.
10. True.
11. Don't tell them that.
12. See #11.
13. Yeah, but at least the kids aren't annoying.
14. Who knows?
15. Yes.
16. Stupidity personified.
17. And it's usually only soccer 'highlights'! Blah!
18. At least the fight... well, never mind.
19. True.
20. O.K.
Great work, I thoroughly enjoyed seeing the obvious put in print!
I guess I must be getting old, but I remember when Chris Berman was enjoyable. (Hell, come to think of it, I even remember when MTV had music videos. Damn, I AM getting old!)
I know ESPN has its faults, but its not like any other sports network doesn't do the same. This network who site we are on has plenty of the same. They to do gimmick stuff like Who's Now in the summer because there is isn't that much sports to talk about in the middle of the summer. Skip Bayless is an #### but doesn't he serve the same purpose as Jason Whitlock? To rouse up the watchers and readers with their outlandish opinions? Sorry if you don't like watching poker, but there is a substanial market for those that do. I actually think Classic shows too much boxing. They don't even show classic fights. They show a bunch of scrap heap fights that Showtime pawns off on them. Talk about beating a dead horse. Boxing is a dead sport in terms of viewership and it isn't ever coming back. But, I would love much more hockey highlights, but I don't blame ESPN after the NHL foolishly walked away from them for Versucks.
I hate ESPN and have barely watched it over the last two years. I'll watch it if there's a game on that I really want to see, but I'm not going to watch their highlights or listen to their analysis of the same old ####.
well i am so glad that wgn can carry a few of the cubs games at least i can actually get some play by play info instead of the unrelated unimportant info that the espn announcers ramble on about i wasn't even sure the announcers were really at the game i was watching holy cow what would Harry have to say i sure miss hearing a game announced when espn is the only carrier
The Harold Reynolds firing was ####, and they replaced him with deadpan analysts, like Chris Singleton and Fernando Vina.
What really bothers me about ESPN is their biased love for the Sox and Yanks. You can bet Sunday Night Baseball will always include one of these teams. Royals vs Yankees? Oooh, I can't wait (sarcasm).
I'M GETTING TO LATE SUMMER IN MY YEARS , BUT I'M TELLIN' YA IF YOU HADN'T SEEN OR LISTENED TOO HOWARD COSELL YOU MISSED SOMETHIN' ....GO TO THE ARCHIVES...
HE MAKES THESE CLOWNS REGRETABLE... A YOUNG CHRIS BERMAN WAS PLENTY GOOD..
Good job,but you missed the the biggest reason why ESPN is so bad, and that is that they are on a never ending quest to turn sport into entertainment.Because of ESPN, athletes think they have to entertain the fans instead of just playing the game.Sport is not entertainment.If you have a distaste for some of the antics that go on in the sprting world today,you can blame it on ESPN.Every Sportsmanships Persons Nightmare.
FoxSports isn't great either. ESPN checks ratings and poker does draw more than other shows they run. People like me watch poker on tv while they play online poker. Why run one full hour of baseball tonight? Like 30 teams playing every day for half the year isn't enough baseball? Also, my theory is that ESPN is trying to push people to watch highlights of things which would kill us to watch. If the sport is bad like anthrax, then a little bit of that sport is like a vaccine. 1Grizzlie
Last edited by 1Grizzlie on August 1st at 3:41 PM.
My name is Mike Gwizdala and I live in Albany, N.Y. The Capitol of the Empire State. I'm probably the biggest most knowledgeable , opinionated sports fan I know. First and foremost I'm an avid, die-hard New York Yankees fan. For those of you who don't know Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada, Mariano Rivera and Andy Pettitte amongst others all played their Double-A ball in Albany.
