Deadspin: ESPN laying off hundreds today

Or spends 30 minutes talking about what Kobe Bryant tweeted that morning. It's not just that they devote more time on their purported news shows to the sports they have rights to, it's that they focus almost entirely on a handful of marquee teams in those sports. Count up the number of times you hear about the Heat, Lakers, Knicks, Celtics, Yankees, Red Sox, Patriots and Jets compared to every other team. There seems to be a natural assumption at the WWL that a mediocre marquee team is more newsworthy than a good no-name franchise.

 

That's just it -- Sports Center is just an entertainment show, no different than Access Hollywood or Entertainment Tonight. It is no more serious journalism than the nightly entertainment shows.

They program Sports Center the way they do because people watch it. Journalists may wail about how the show doesn't have this or that -- all while the average Joes tend to love it. Thre is a disconnect there.

 

That assumption is held everywhere.

It's why people --- on this board, no less --- call a potential Falcons-Texans Super Bowl matchup boring and yet are licking their chops at a potential 49ers-Broncos game.

Similar talent level. Numbingly similar plays run from the line of scrimmage. With a couple of exceptions you could have each team wear the other's uniform and NOBODY WOULD KNOW THE DIFFERENCE. Yet one is a snooze. The other is "woo-hoo!" Just because of laundry.

It's why people on this board say things like, "I hope there is a Pacers-Grizzlies NBA Finals so we can see the ratings bottom out and the network squirm."

Well, why would the rating bottom out if the public didn't deem the matchup not worthy of their attention (aka not newsworthy)?

It's why on a scroll of NASCAR results they will show the top 5 . . . and then mention where Danica Patrick finished. No matter where she finished.

Because that's what YOU want to know when you are looking at the scroll. Her 28th-place finish was not newsworthy, but people want to know what she did.

It's why on a scroll of golf scores you'll see the leaders mentioned . . . and then Tiger if he's not among the leaders. Maybe Mickelson. But always Tiger. Never mind that he may be 9 shots out and barely made the cut.

It's why a French Open final between Tomas Berdych and Marin Cilic would be considered boring, but one between Nadal and Djokovic would be thrilling (no matter that they've played each other 34 times). Same elite level of tennis. Same great defense and shotmaking . . . but one is viewed as more exciting than the other.

 

Why?

"SportsCenter" is whatever the hell ESPN says it is. ESPN is always going to use it as both a news and promotional tool. It's not a newspaper. Don't expect them to hold themselves to standards from another format and another business.

Well, it's mostly because they don't have the video. If you're not the Olympics rights holder, you get something like 3 minutes of video total per day.

 

Everything here from BTExpress is spot on. News is celebrity driven. As BTExpress noted, people want to know how Tiger and Danica fared. Because of that, it makes sense to have Tiger's name in the headline even if he is 10 shots back.

 

ESPN insists that you want to know what Tiger and Danica did. As in: ESPN insists that you want to follow the Tebow circus 24/7 until you pull your hair out. Before that, Favre. And now the Heat is America's Team, right? Because LEBRON!

The media fall into this pattern of overkill by saying it's what we want to know. But too much of a good thing is awful. So the trick is to know how to balance it. ESPN sells out by jamming us relentlessly until we can't breathe right.

Why? Because it's the easy way out. Don't have to work so hard, top to bottom, when you can just keep throwing LeBron out there, everywhere, for six weeks.

 

If you watched ESPN for all of basketball season, it would be very easy to think that the only teams that merited any coverage this season were the Heat and Lakers.

 

Real chicken or egg situation, isn't it?

 

But that held true here, too, as well.

Everything Favre did got its own thread and its own cycle of teeth gnashing. Instead of simply rolling our eyes and saying (to ourselves!), "Not interested anymore, sorry," we devoted discussion after discussion to Favre's indecision and ESPN's fascination with Favre's indecision and how sick and tired we were of Favre's indecision . . . but never sick and tired enough to stop complaining about how sick and tired we were of it. Instead, it was just channeled into someone to root against.

 

Favre and Tebow are the two players who the entire country seems to be sick of because, in large part, ESPN talks about them way more than anyone seemed to want.

They covered that Jets team last year like it was a Super Bowl favorite. I'll bet the Niners, Ravens, Falcons and Patriots didn't receive a tenth of the coverage that the Jets did during training camp.

Obviously there was an interest there. But there is such a thing as overkill.

 

If you watched ESPN during NFL training camps last summer you would have thought that Tim Tebow was the best QB in the NFL.

 

It's just so easy.

It's the Easy Sports Programming Network today.