ESPN pay cuts?

2 am CT SportsCenter was appointment viewing for me after work back in those days.

 

Michael Smith got screwed.

 

When do you think podcasting became big?

 

ESPN always throws in one or two “oh shit, they did that?” layoffs. The Schwab before, Soltys here.

 

Speaking of radio ...

 

Interesting timing, given ESPN Chicago just bought the radio rights to the Bears.

 

Same, same, same. I'd fall asleep to ESPN and wake up to ESPN. When I began dating my wife, she thought I was a NASCAR fan b/c we'd fall asleep in bed #LivingInSin and she'd wake up to some kind of NASCAR rerun airing at like 5 AM.

 

Fucking loved Kilborn. He was so good on the feel good edition. Me and my college buddies would always refer to Chuck Knoblauch as "Fundamentally sound Chuck Knoblauch" until, well, he wasn't. Kilborn once went off on some soliloquy about William Shatner during a highlight and I thought it was the greatest thing I'd ever heard. But yeah. Short shelf life and that smarm isn't nearly as endearing now that he's 60. But credit to him, he made bank and got out.

I like SVP but not nearly enough to watch SportsCenter, though I was really impressed w/him the night of the Damar Hamlin injury.

 

ESPN is comfort food for me in the AM. I mostly work at home now, so often it’s Get Up/First Take/noon SC, without me giving it much attention. I probably legit watch five minutes of any six-hour bloc.

 

There's a serious Mr. Trickle joke that I just won't touch, tempting as it is.

"SportsCenter" was appointment viewing in the mid-90s. Keith Olbermann and Dan Patrick at 2300 EDT, then Stuart Scott and Rich Eisen with the wrap-up, including the results from the West Coast, at 0200. All of them excellent.

The funny part is the powers-that-be at ESPN didn't like their schtick then, and when Olbermann and Patrick suggested that ESPN do more to market them, the WWL refused, playing the "no one is too big" card. The irony, given that too many of them now are trying entirely too hard for schtick and that the WWL has literally thrown them in our faces.

The hot take shows can go away, except for PTI ... and as much as I like Michael Wilbon, they seem to have gotten too comfortable with the set schedule and big money. So even that has lost its luster. And the SportsCenter that many of us used to know and love is no longer about getting results, but rather their narrative and what they can promote and package. So The Mouse has sunk its claws into them.

And now because of pure greed, they're laying them off by the bunch. And the most annoying, overpaid, bellowing, loud idiots will be the survivors.

 

Those who care about the results of game have not had to rely on Sportscenter or the scroll at the bottom of the screen for a long time. And for the past 5+ years, every single exciting play is on Twitter within seconds so you don’t need to wait for the Top 10 to see it. So, outside of live sports, there is no need for ESPN to present facts — only opinion and analysis.

 

The original 'Serial' feels like a reasonable beginning to bigness. 2014.

There were certainly podcasts long before that, but it seemed to me they were in the margins of the information economy, not centerstage.

Just one former legacy media podcasting geezer's opinion.