I used to think Mike and Mike was a good morning radio show. I used to think that despite how obnoxious Mike Greenberg was, Mike Golic would balance it out. I used to think that Bob Picozzi brought actual intelligence to the scene. I also used to watch Barney.My how times have changed.
ESPN has raped another show. I did not think it could do it to radio, but it did.
ESPN has intruded into my life by selling a corporate sponsorship to an online vote. Nothing beats that “McDonalds Just Shut Up” award, right?
ESPN has put the show on television on ESPNEWS. Now the show is targeting a new audience and has to change.
ESPN has turned Mike and Mike into pop icons, just like it did with the Sportscenter hosts.
ESPN has alienated me again.
Now you may know that I (insert every word with a negative connotation) Miles Brand and the NCAA, but that does not even come close to expressing my emotions to ESPN.
ESPN has dedicated hours to the Kobe trial even after it was over and done with. I don’t hear CNN talking about Terry Shiavo anymore.
ESPN has moved the NBA to the forefront of Sportscenter broadcasts regardless of the time of year. I’m not kidding. It used to be college football on Saturdays, right? Not anymore. New Orleans @ Milwaukee on November 13 was shown barely halfway through the eleven o’clock Sportscenter. Why?
ESPN has canceled perennial hits such as the “Sportscenter Showcase” and replaced it with the “Daily Poll,” which is a question that is more retarded that Gene Kaedy’s hair piece after it goes through the drier.
ESPN wants ratings. And ESPN wants the hip-hop generation. And ESPN does not realize that it can get equal ratings and get an intelligent audience for its intelligent shows.
Notice that easy-to-follow Around the Horn and PTI are on in the early evening and Outside the Lines is on at midnight with silly plots? ESPN doesn’t care.
ESPN does not care what the intelligent fan cares about.
ESPN does not care what most people want to watch
ESPN does not care that it has betrayed what made it special.
Most of all, ESPN don’t care.
ESPN used to show sports; now it shows people.
ESPNU has become what ESPN once was: a network where athletes can take the limelight and play their little hearts out in front of a television audience that cares about the sport. I remember when ESPN was like that. I remember when ESPN was not on crack.
So why did it create ESPNU? So why did it create another entity so brilliant and so beautiful? So why did it create another mass producer of wealth that it can exploit and turn into another haven for crap?
If I were the head of ESPN and had a brain (I know those two things do not go hand-in-hand), I would have created an ESPNH for all the shit it shows now and leave regular ESPN to cover the job of ESPNU. I mean, that was what ESPN was once like.
I’d even give ESPN some pro baseball and basketball and Sunday Night Football. THAT is what made ESPN good.
Not 50 Cent.
I am sick of what ESPN has done to its shows. I’m not even talking about what Mike & Mike have done to their show.
ESPN has corrupted itself; ESPN has corrupted ESPN2; ESPN has corrupted ESPN Classic; ESPN has corrupted ESPNEWS; ESPN will corrupt ESPNU.
History always repeats itself. England will be conquered by an outside power again, don’t worry. Everything repeats itself.
Rome fell. So too will ESPN.
15 replies on “Requiem”
i voted for front page are you going to yell at us again? 🙂
nah I don’t mind this article getting on the front page.
Thanks for making the correction.
BOOYAH!!! I soured on ESPN about a year ago. With their retarded analysts and blatant lack of integrity, it was an easy choice to walk away. I watch ESPNews to catch up on things but I get my commentary from NFL Network. Mostly, I go to Cbs.sportsline.com for sports news.
Actually, ESPN sucking so bad and being disneyfied (think Page 3) was what spurred me to create Sportscolumn in the first place.
"Holla at your boy"
Yeah I did the same thing a couple months ago. It just gets old hearing the same tired catchphrases and listening to the same idiots (Skip Bayless) talk. The internet really provides almost everything you need to follow the sports world adequetly.
I thought it was good.. — but i’m pretty sure ESPN cares what people want to watch or they wouldnt be in buisness. I also doubt that ESPN is gonna go out of buisness anytime soon. Sportscenter is an Emmy award winning show that has been in buisness for 20 or so years. I agree that ESPN has made the shows more glitzy and more repetitive than ever. I know after I watch PTI im gonna watch Around the Horn with the same exact questions and see the same topics covered. ESPN obviously knows what people like to watch and they care about ratings more than anything. Not to bad of an article though.
“Most of all, ESPN don’t care”-i dont know if you ment to say that or not.
i think what people object to the most is that ESPN seems to be “dumbing down” the analysis and creating sound bites for the casual fan. So after the TO/McNabb spat in pittsburgh, when TO was actually trying to pep Mcnabb up, everyone was saying to me “you knew TO was a troublemaker!” The current contract situation aside, they were completely wrong about that incident. But they showed it 100 times on ESPN and sensationalized the hell out of it.
Sure ESPN cares about what people watch. That’s almost the problem. They just want to appeal to as many people as possible and has watered down real sports insight. It’s like they see what is the most popular and lamely tie sports to it. Everything is cross promotion. Hey, X singer is hot.. she’s signed to X label which we have a deal with. Let’s interview her to see who she likes in the Super Bowl.
The whole hip-hop thing is just retarded. I hate when culture is exploited just to sell more ads or whatever. When was the last time Stu Scott made a comment that made you think “woooah.. he’s right on”. What about Scoop Jackson? The writing style is all about appealing to a urban youth audience. But if you read the column, there’s no substance there.
Not necessarily to an urban youth audience, just to a youth audience. That seems to be pop culture nowadays.
that’s right i grew up in the 80s/90s in the city so i keep forgetting.
i got sick of ESPN a while ago I’ve started about three times before to write an article (i’ve posted in various forums my dislike for ESPN) about ESPN. I finally got it out. I just needed something to spark the interest and finding out about the “McDonalds Just Shut Up Award” gave me that spark. The only good Sportscenter announcers left are Linda Cohn and Stuart Scott and even those two have dumbed down their commentary. ESPN is terrible.
Hold up…. ….i read so many articles that bash ESPN, but not on, not even one, has given me any proof or viable information. Ur article was was just a bunch of fluff with no content.
If i had a chance to vote I would have voted no. You need to write like a journalist, not like so crazy guy yelling mindless babble. So please, give me some facts or dont say anything at all.
yeah i agree with a man88 This artticle was about pointless, ESPN ,which is far from going out of buisness, and its also getting better ratings than it used to. If you really dont like ESPN then dont watch it…
Why should I give facts? Come on! I’m stating an opinion that ESPN sucks. How can I prove that with facts? I cannot prove an opinion of something being good or bad!
What I tried to do was appeal to you all emotionally. There were no logos that I could have put in to prove my point. What do you want me to do? Do you want me to lie and say that a survey of 100 people came back with a 62% rate of dislike towards ESPN compared to 53% 10 years ago?
Come on!
Statistics cannot prove whether ESPN is good or bad for my tastes.
And if you are mad at the last line, I was only making a comparison. I’m stating that history repeats itself and one day ESPN will fall. I did not say when. I’m just making a fact. Did you think you’d see the day that the Soviet Union collapsed? Of course not! But it happened.
I’ll be glad to “write like a journalist” and give you “viable information” when the article fits your requirements. I don’t know how I can prove that in my opinion ESPN sucks.
OK.
Wait.
So do you want me to tell you every hip-hopish thing that ESPN does? Do you want me to baby you through my articles, take my time so that if there is something you don’t know I waste four paragraphs to clean it up for you? Do you want me to destroy my style for you ego?
I write about sports. I know about sports. I don’t waste my time to explain to you everything you don’t know. M.K. Lawson, author of “The Battle of Hastings: 1066” (I’m using this as an example because I’m reading it right now), tells you about the battle. He does not baby you or turn it into a novel like Tuchman or Schlessinger, for better or for worse. He just tells you the history and expects you to get it and gives you minimal “basic” information. I expect my audience to understand the topic. If they don’t, well then who cares? I’m not going to tell you everything I see that is hip-hopish about ESPN. That to me is a common fact. It is as valid to me as seeing a player who is 4/20 and saying that it a .200 batting average. I don’t need to prove what is a fact for my audience. I don’t need to prove to a staunch ESPN fan that he is wrong. He won’t change. Neither will a pro-life person when I tell him I am pro-abortion. It does not matter.
So what do you want me to do? I can spill it out for you and tell you everything and you still won’t be satisfied. Because to you none of this is fact. You don’t see it that way.
I do.
So there; now you know the truth. Use it well.
I don’t like ESPN. You do. Let us leave it at that.
Let us leave our differences alone.
Unless you have a legitamite complaint about my article…….
History doesn’t always repeat itself… The expression is “those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it”. Which means that a repeat of history can be avoided if we learn from it.
Of course, ESPN is not learning from history, so they are doomed to repeat it. Good article.
A journalist… …first of all, i wasnt even alive, for the most part, when the Soviet Union was in power.
But ne way, when u spoke of that book, u brought up a good point: when someone is reading a book u dont always have to baby them and tell them all the essential facts.
However, this is journalism, and its completley different. The best journalists have a way of explaining everything clearly while not stating the obvious (all the time). Sound impossible? If it does, journalism might not be for you.
point taken I’m not going to comment further, partly because I have a terrible earache that none of the traditional methods such as “ear popping”, yawning, chewing gum, hitting my head, drinking water, shit, triple deja vu just occured (deja vu of having deja vu of having deja vu typing this passage), etc. It is excrutiatingly painful.
But point taken.
And I babied you through triple deja vu!