Deadspin: ESPN laying off hundreds today

And then everyone bought everyone drinks!

 

Far too much of what ESPN does is driven by what events it has the broadcast rights to. Notice how little hockey, soccer, golf, auto racing or even tennis (outside of the Slams, which it televises) news gets on ESPN. MLS pretty well ceased to exist once ESPN lost the broadcast rights. Yet it's constant overkill of the NFL, college football and Major League Baseball.

They'll spend more time in August on preseason NFL stuff than the Olympics. Why? Because a rival network has Olympic broadcast rights and they don't want to promote someone else's product.

 

Who needs copy editors, chapter infinity:

 

That's a long Achilles' tendon.

 

You sound like Jimmy The Greek.

 

I'm not the one who wrote that his Achilles' extends all the way up to his knee.

 

Get used to it. More gaffes to come.

 

I could argue MLB gets shafted some nights because of NBA. I'm not talking about playoff basketball... in some cases, those games do deserve more coverage. It's the nights when Sportscenter spends 30 of its 60 minutes talking about an NBA regular season game.

And yes, it's likely because NBA contract is with ESPN... but your overall point is great. Some sports get crumbs. Wonder if that changes when Fox's nightly highlight show goes online?

 

I think that ESPN accurately reflects the interests of the mass American sports market. I think the "average" sports fan has limited interest in hockey, soccer, golf (except when Tiger is playing and they will cover that), auto racing (with the exception of NASCAR, which it seems to me they cover pretty extensively) and tennis.

 

What if the big newspapers did that?

 

So ESPN spends billions of dollars on rights to certain sports ... and then should focus its attention on sports it has no financial stake in?

That's fair and balanced journalism for sure, but not a very smart business model.

 

Yes, it most definitely should. If not, then don't have a SportsCenter.