Deadspin: ESPN laying off hundreds today

OK, so sports should start covering the Kardashians, cos that's what people want to read about, or should run a "women of Xhamster" picture package, because people will read that.

 

If ESPN thinks it can get them ratings, sure.

That's the whole point of SportsCenter. That and to promote their other programming. It isn't the New York Times, and to think it is is your own mistake, not theirs.

 

Because they try just as hard as NFLers?

 

No, I don't think that anymore. But I don't watch anymore, either, because I don't want to have to sit through 20 minutes of Tebow or LeBron or Whatev to get to today's game highlights.

 

I just surf the Net instead. SC evolved, and I moved on. No big loss either way.

 

That's great. If enough people do that, SportsCenter will change what it does.

I am sure their research shows pretty clearly that Tebow or LeBron or Red Sox-Yankees moves the needle, though.

 

What you're not getting is that to a large segment of America, SportsCenter is the sports front page. They're not ironic in their following of it. And given the outsize importance of sports in our society, it contributes to the further trivialization of America. But if any old shit is OK with you as long as it gets the numbers...

 

Back a decade or more ago, ESPN carried a nightly 30-minute highlight show called NHL2Night, that ran highlights and analysis of all the night's games, plus news. Very similar to Baseball Tonight or NBA Coast to Coast. Funny how it disappeared when ESPN lost the NHL broadcast rights.

I can respect the concept of news shows being separate from live event broadcasts. But with ESPN, they're not.

And, yes, as others mentioned, ESPN seems obsessed with certain personalities, be they Brett Favre, Tim Tebow, Kobe Bryant, Alex Rodriguez or whomever.

 

Good Lord. Talk about overdramatic. You really feel like the republic is in danger if people don't get their Pirates-Cardinals highlights?

I watch SportsCenter sometimes. I don't mind it. There's usually something there on all the top stories. I also know it isn't going to be an encyclopedia of everything that happened in the entire world of professional sports, and that's OK. If I'm interested in a team, I'll go look up info on that team. But regardless, SportsCenter is not a news program, and its subject matter is just not that important in the first place.

 

Lots of people would do it, but have no viable alternative. We'll see if Fox Sports 1 provides it.

As it stands, SC is, IMO, a much better show when women are hosting it vs. men, who apparently think they have to talk about themselves, recite rap lyrics or be pop culture wizards just to walk through a highlight.

 

I haven't watched more than bits and pieces of SportsCenter in years and my earlier posts explained why. If that's what they want to do, fine. If people want to devour that, more power to them.

 

Got that right. It's all over the network.
That was really the tits back around 1987.