More Cuts at ESPN

azrael-
Not sure why sports talk needs to be out-of-the-way 'funny'.
It's something that cropped up with the ESPN-ization of sports and that was not a good thing for the network.

 

I think if you try to jam it in, yeah, it sucks. Like throwing Dennis Miller on MNF. But when it's organic - the Manning brothers insulting one another, Charles Barkley - it definitely helps the broadcast, kind of like how I'd rather have Gus Johnson or Kevin Harlan and their exuberance over a generic broadcaster.

 

ESPN's most vaunted property, SportsCenter, succeeded largely on the strength of being hosted by 'funny' people. The show itself was not meant as comedy, but benefited immensely from having wisecracking hosts like Olberman and Patrick at the desk.

Same for PTI or HQ or ATH or any other personality-driven show on the network. Like the Mannings, as above. Not comedy by design, but formats in which funnier people will flourish.

The holy grail for years at ESPN (and Fox Sports, etc.) was some sort of late-night talk show, which historically requires a quick, engaging funny person at the helm.

ESPN has always benefited from funny individual hosts, but has never in its 40-year history been able to create, develop, design or program a comedy show the purpose of which was to be funny about sports.

 

Bomani Jones reportedly expected to leave ESPN when contract expires in March

 

This sucks, but at this point he's probably better off somewhere else anyway. Some sort of combo Meadowlark/HBO future would be great.

 

This is the era she definitely thrives. The pay from ESPN backs that up.

If this was, say, 1996 and not 2021, Katie Nolan would have been doing weekends in Wilmington or Evansville, in desperate search of the “get the hell out this tiny market” story about the bowler who lost six toes at birth and had half their face scalded by hot water as a baby.

Digital means that people don’t have to do that shit anymore. The shit I did for years.

 

Sage Steele?

But! Mike! Greenberg!

 

Another anti-vax loser bites the dust

 

Sage should just go to the ESPN execs and be honest: She wants to go to Fox News. She sees what a hack like Candace Owens is doing and figures she's smarter and better suited for it. ESPN would probably release her and she could go. Fox News would scoop her up in a mill-second.

Instead she's going to try to look like a victim of ESPN's "horrible leftist agenda".

 

It's an odd spot for Bristol... and for Sage Steele.

She'd had conservative, overtly pro-military opinions here and there and she is also Black. But does the WWL/Disney tolerate... her? Jemele Hill had her own battles with ESPN execs but I would contend that her comments were a bit sharper than what we've heard from Steele, at least publicly, to this point.

Also, ABC's news agenda doesn't fit with Steele and they're all from the same trough. If you ever watch the ABC nightly news and the prime time programming, you'll definitely see a valiant attempt to reach out to non-white viewers. CBS still chases the old folks. NBC still wants the Yukon/YETI/Yoga Pants crowd ("This is Us"). ABC's news also has this focus for lighter stories - the "Hi David!" fluff pieces.