More Cuts at ESPN

Maria Taylor doesn't strike me as much of a on-set point guard, which is helpful for a good host.

Beadle has that ability, and she knows sports. But she works better as a counterpuncher to a Colin Cowherd than she does working with more friendly, less contrarian personalities. On Get Up she struggles to ditch the "c'mon everybody and stop being stupid" attitude.

Rachel Nichols is a better host. Chris McKendry, too.

In a perfect world, Beadle would be an opinion-maker, not a host. ESPN generally has awful opinion makers.

And by that, I mean this: Not that they have awful opinions, but that they hold on to opinions so tightly they can't see their way to a good debate.

It's perhaps the biggest, worst consequence of identity politics. See, once you hold your opinion on a given issue so tightly that it becomes your very identity, the debate gets boring really fast. You get boxed in to one take and one take only and begin to absorb disagreement as something closer to an insult. A different opinion becomes a microaggression or, worse, a macroaggression. And ESPN in then left with people just talking in bubbles.

It's hard to watch, because, instinctively, you're waiting for someone to make the conversation interesting with a counterpoint. Often, it doesn't come. At that point, it just becomes a group of people sitting in a circle, like they've just met, introducing themselves. Who wants to watch that?

 

You don't need to have opinion makers.

In my mind, the best sports show out there (the only good one) is NFL Network's Good Morning Football. Three men, female host, and they are having fun. Not a hot take to be found. They are having fun, they seem intelligent. They play football charades. They talk football. I wouldn't know where any of the four lie on the political scale if you put a gun to my head. They are four people you genuinely wouldn't mind spending some time with.

It is a frigging crime to waste time getting Maria Taylor's thoughts on Josh Hader. What little I saw of this morning, there were few hot takes. They were rating college defensive players. At one point, there was a challenge to see if Marcus Spears could do 25 pushups.

It doesn't have to be Morning Zoo zaniness. Just have some fun up there. This isn't rocket science.

 

I wasn't talking specifically about morning shows which, yes, tend to have a flavor to them.

Taylor, to me, is not particularly natural or loose.

On Good Morning Football, Kay Adams is a real talent for that particular format. Not so different from Katie Nolan, with the exception Nolan has boxed herself in to being an opinion maker. It's hurt her career, because, while she's very loose and funny, and she's not much of an opinion-maker, especially on heavy topics.

ESPN has become a boring, stuffy, solemn, strident, overpolished network. Skipper did that. ESPN's size did that. I think the Barstool show was a way of getting ESPN some kind of updated dumb humor - vs. the 1993 humor John Anderson totes around - and it backfired because Barstool is, well, Barstool.

But the network needs someone. Or something. Lee Corso's like the sixth most-interesting person on the network. That's a problem.

 

Kay Adams is fabulous. I've seen 15 minutes of Maria Taylor and I think she could do the same (perhaps I am wrong).

 

I don't personally think so - I've seen quite a bit of her work on college gameday - but that's JMO. I think the closest thing to Adams is Nolan, who had a real splash a couple years ago, then decided (was advised?) to inch toward social commentary (like a Samantha Bee of sports) and hasn't, to this point, crossed the bridge.

I'm not suggesting any of this is easy or that I'm exactly, you know, right. What Robin Roberts and Kelly Ripa do - and they're probably the top of their industry - is enormously hard. For anyone, really, but especially women, who are judged all the time. Beadle's up there, but I feel like she needed to stick with someone strong-willed like Cowherd. They were very good together. Equally matched.

 

Lauren Shehadi does a nice job hosting MLB Central on MLB Network and keeping the jocks in line.

 

Beadle's way up there.

Shehadi is OK but I'd need to see more.

 

A river? Who cares about some shitty old river in Bristol?

That fucking bridge is fake. Capricorn One.

 

Was eating lunch at a place with 12 TVs. All on something with sports.

Whenever Maria Taylor popped on, I watched. Whenever they cut away, I went back to my jalapeño burger and fries.

No sound. But I didn’t care. I watched her.

 

ESPN shutting down SportsNation, moving High Noon to SportsNation slot.

SportsNation Canceled, High Noon Moving to Its Spot on ESPN

 

They're also slicing High Noon down to a half-hour, which aggravates the hell out of me. That's a really good show.

 

Good in what way? I'm not saying it isn't, but very few people watch it as it is.