ESPN Is Pathetic

Kliq

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This makes sense, but they once carried the Stanley Cup playoffs and UEFA Champions League and treated each of them with the importance of 10 year old shoes.
Well part of it is definitely interest based, if ESPN could draw big ratings for SC talking about the MLB they would even if they were not broadcasting it themselves. But a lot of what ESPN does from a news perspective is directly related to what live sporting events they are going to be broadcasting. For instance, ESPN had a direct stake in making the Lonzo/LaVar Ball thing a big important deal, because last season they were going to show a bunch of Laker games on Monday/Wednesday/Friday nights and since the Lakers were a crappy team, they needed a reason for fans to tune in. So they covered the shit out of a mediocre rookie and his moronic father in hopes of creating interest for the games.

I remember back when I paid more attention to College Football that ESPN was falling head-over-heels for Jameis Winston. They were broadcasting his weekly press conferences and even began covering his college baseball games. It was completely ridiculous, but ESPN also broadcasts the ACC games on Saturday nights, so they had a direct stake in trying to make Winston looking like a star.
 

shaggydog2000

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This makes sense, but they once carried the Stanley Cup playoffs and UEFA Champions League and treated each of them with the importance of 10 year old shoes.
ESPN put a big push on the NHL back in the 90's when they had their games. The viewership didn't grow the way they expected, so that was that for them. They had their shot, in ESPN's eyes.
 

shaggydog2000

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Right, I don´t watch any TV unless I'm at a hotel. All sports, series and movies streamed from different internet sources. For news I look for them at diverse internet services. I said goodbye to the cord and the dish many years ago.
But what about when you're at a bar or the bar in a restaurant? Or at the gym? Or in a hotel lobby? Do those add up to about 70% of the ESPN viewership, or is that just me?
 

Papelbon's Poutine

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But what about when you're at a bar or the bar in a restaurant? Or at the gym? Or in a hotel lobby? Do those add up to about 70% of the ESPN viewership, or is that just me?
Nope, that’s me too and now that I’m spending a few nights a months in a hotel for work, I bought a Firestick because the channel is essentially useless to me outside of live games. It’s not even about anything in particular, so no it’s not deflate gate, maybe it’s just a change in priorities; but I find the on air talent to be all about #hottakez and frankly their online presence isn’t much better these days. I’d love to sit down and watch Gammons, Stark, Eisen or Kenny talk Baseball
Tonight but it’s not there anymore, in schedule or content. Maybe I changed and it’s always been like that?
 

patoaflac

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Nope, that’s me too and now that I’m spending a few nights a months in a hotel for work, I bought a Firestick because the channel is essentially useless to me outside of live games. It’s not even about anything in particular, so no it’s not deflate gate, maybe it’s just a change in priorities; but I find the on air talent to be all about #hottakez and frankly their online presence isn’t much better these days. I’d love to sit down and watch Gammons, Stark, Eisen or Kenny talk Baseball
Tonight but it’s not there anymore, in schedule or content. Maybe I changed and it’s always been like that?
We all have changed in the last 10 years, technology has changed our lifes for better or for worse, but our habits have changed a lot.
 

johnmd20

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I have three TVs in my office now and one of them is usually on ESPN.(the other two are CNBC and Bloomberg)

I watch Get Up occasionally, it's actually not bad. But I'm also not focused on it. ESPN.com is the worst website in humanity, and should result in the actual executions of the web designers, but the channel ESPN is still pretty good.
 

DanoooME

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Watching the Stanford - UCLA men's hoops game and Bill Walton and his partner are practically at each other's throats. And I have a lot of sympathy for the PBP guy that has to deal with Walton. An example:

Walton: "I can't even remember if he was in the starting lineup or not."
PBP guy: "Well, if you'd pay attention once in a while you'd know that"

They've gone back and forth for the past few minutes.
 

InstaFace

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Watching the Stanford - UCLA men's hoops game and Bill Walton and his partner are practically at each other's throats. And I have a lot of sympathy for the PBP guy that has to deal with Walton. An example:

Walton: "I can't even remember if he was in the starting lineup or not."
PBP guy: "Well, if you'd pay attention once in a while you'd know that"

They've gone back and forth for the past few minutes.
Announcer teams that hate each other are way more interesting than announcer teams that all get along happily. I think Tolstoy wrote that.
 

mauidano

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The Detroit Tigers announcers took it to a new level this past September. Rod Allen & Mario Impemba brawling over a chair. Both are now gone.
 

Bunt4aTriple

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Watching the Stanford - UCLA men's hoops game and Bill Walton and his partner are practically at each other's throats. And I have a lot of sympathy for the PBP guy that has to deal with Walton. An example:

Walton: "I can't even remember if he was in the starting lineup or not."
PBP guy: "Well, if you'd pay attention once in a while you'd know that"

They've gone back and forth for the past few minutes.
If it was Dave Pasch, they have some philosophical differences that can sometimes bleed over into the broadcast: https://jesusnsports.wordpress.com/2012/06/29/dave-pasch-broadcasting-for-christ/
 

JimD

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@richarddeitsch Would be interesting to ask ESPN senior management if the sources talking to ESPN reporters here should be terminated.
 

Dehere

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Boy the Richard Deitsch podcast with Jim Miller on this topic that went up today is terrific. Miller, who is generally so measured in his answers, is on fire over this. Great listen if this kind of behind the curtain stuff interests you at all.
 

JimD

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I'm sure Jimmy Pitaro was waiting for the first opportunity to catch some baseball or soccer person doing this to make an example of them. Had it been one of their marquee NFL or CFB frontline talents, it would have been a two-week suspension tops.
 

Pablo's TB Lover

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Boy the Richard Deitsch podcast with Jim Miller on this topic that went up today is terrific. Miller, who is generally so measured in his answers, is on fire over this. Great listen if this kind of behind the curtain stuff interests you at all.
Yeah the F bombs were flying, I don't remember that from Jim before. While during his previous work covering ESPN he has leaned towards the employees side of events, he has also shown a lot of empathy towards the management for the difficult decisions that need to be made in this large evolving organization. Which is why he has a good dialogue with both sides to help him provide a complete story of ESPN.

However this was NOT one of those occasions.
 

ifmanis5

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ESPN made a trip to Denver to beg Peyton to be on MNF.
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/espn-courting-peyton-manning-monday-night-football-1195084?utm_source=twitter&utm_source=t.co&utm_medium=referral
ESPN is courting Peyton Manning to join its Monday Night Football team, The Hollywood Reporter has learned.

ESPN president Jimmy Pitaro and content chief Connor Schell made a trip to Denver on March 11 to meet with Manning, who has been mentioned before for a broadcast role. But it’s unclear whether Manning is interested in pursuing a career as an analyst at this time.
 

Kliq

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Polian is retiring. Our long national nightmare is over.
You never retire from saying stupid things. He will still probably be making the rounds on Sirius talk shows and if anything, not having a full-time gig anymore would allow him to let it fly even more. He is such a fraud.
 

Dan Murfman

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A nice screw up by ESPN yesterday. They had scheduled the women's tournament show for 7 PM last night. On ESPNU at 3 they had a men's bracketology show on. Instead of show the men's first round games they had the women's games listed. They didn't realize the screw up until all the games were revealed. So they moved up the selection show to 5 pm.

https://ftw.usatoday.com/2019/03/espn-womens-tournament-bracket-leaked-ncaa
 

E5 Yaz

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They didn't realize the screw up until all the games were revealed. So they moved up the selection show to 5 pm.
That was the dumbest part. Okay, the graphics department screwed up ... you have four hours to figure out a clever way to move forward from the mistake.

But, no, instead let's move the selection show up 2 hours. If you were planning to watch it at 7, how are you supposed to know it's now at 5?