ESPN Is Pathetic

Couperin47

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Does that make you the Columbia equivalent of a Triple Eagle then?
lol, it just makes me someone from The Bronx (I come by my Yankee fandom organically, in 1956 when I was 8 if you asked someone what was your team, there was only one sport that mattered and in NYC if you were from Brooklyn it had to be the Dodgers, Manhattan meant Giants, Queens could be either of the NL teams, The Bronx meant, like Joe, you were blessed by God, and ...nobody lived on Staten Island) who despite my best efforts, kept failing at getting out of town for school... somehow Marciano, a fellow Lion, hadn't picked up that I did undergrad and law there, I have no idea what he thought my profession was....
 

Section30

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"...We need to be all things to all people" -Greenie

With that kind of laser focus I'm taking the under on how long the show lasts. 4 months?
 

Couperin47

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ESPN revisionist history: They already tried this, a morning show that was more than just sports from studios in NYC. The first time the added gimmick was that most of the hosts were pretty young chicks who would bring in the young guys. It was, of course, Cold Pizza. It was a huge flop: the girls mostly knew nothing about sports, the non-sports segments were incredibly lame. They started peeling away the non-sports segments and the chicks and, god help us, brought in Skip Bayless and Woody Paige, for which sin everyone connected should rot in Hell for eternity. Bayless refined his insufferability as Woody, who knows very little and is incredibly lazy, refined his wacky this-is-not-an-act stupidity into a caricature of a caricature. Then he left, they decamped to Bristol to cut costs even further and finally killed this, mostly by just renaming the remains First Take in 2007.

This attempt will cost a LOT more, will not attract any real non-ABC/Disney celebrities who will prefer any of the 3 broadcast networks morning shows, so the only folks who will appear are those commanded to do so by Disney and Greenie's personality (or rather lack thereof...) is mighty thin gruel for this stew. Epic disaster is a lock.

PS The cherry on top is that the show's champion left ESPN last month and now it's a red head stepchild or rather a Titanic that hit an iceberg in Liverpool Harbor and then set sail...
 
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Red(s)HawksFan

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Not that I want to get into the business of defending ESPN, but the downfall of Cold Pizza was that it was an ESPN2 show back when ESPN2 still wasn't quite as ubiquitous as it is now. It wasn't Olbermann-in-a-leather-jacket anymore but it was still trying to be the cool, hip younger brother of the original ESPN and it tried too hard. They weren't helped with their cast of relative unknowns, whereas all three of Greenie, Beadle, and Rose are known quantities. So there is a difference and a reason ESPN thinks this can work.

I doubt this new show will be any better or worse than all their other attempts at capturing a larger audience, but the Cold Pizza thing is a bit of a poor comparison.
 

edoug

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If ESPN needs a slogan, "We know you enjoy the witty banter between mismatched award show presenters. You're going to love "Get Up."
 

dcmissle

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This represents an enormous financial commitment in salaries and infrastructure. It’s very difficult to see the payoff. And when they get into the political, and they will, they’ll invariably get knee-capped no matter what sides they take.

Paying screamers evidently works. Stephen A and so forth. My sense is this show is aiming too highbrow. The average sports consumer prefers cock fights over cirque du soleil
 

SocrManiac

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I realize that nobody around here gives a shit about F1, but ESPN took over for this season. The first race weekend of the year is taking place now in Austrilia, so there’s a time shift. They claimed they would air live but didn’t account for the DST in the US not being in effect Down Under. So, DVRs didn’t get qualifying last night.

F1 is buried in their Apple TV app and they put the results on the same page as the replay. ESPN sucks.
 

cgori

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I realize that nobody around here gives a shit about F1, but ESPN took over for this season. The first race weekend of the year is taking place now in Austrilia, so there’s a time shift. They claimed they would air live but didn’t account for the DST in the US not being in effect Down Under. So, DVRs didn’t get qualifying last night.

F1 is buried in their Apple TV app and they put the results on the same page as the replay. ESPN sucks.
Oof. I believe the quali did air live for me on Comcast (on the west coast). They did something weird to free practice 3, it got preempted for a college baseball game that probably (?) had a rain delay.

They are using the sky sports coverage which is about 500% better than the rah-rah stuff we got on NBCSN or fox sports back in the day. The sky team actually knows a ton about what is happening, can explain tyre/pit strategy, will identify really subtle driving errors on replay, and is better connected to the teams because they travel with them to every location.

I hope they figure out the scheduling because I’m already excited about the coverage.
 

SocrManiac

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Oof. I believe the quali did air live for me on Comcast (on the west coast). They did something weird to free practice 3, it got preempted for a college baseball game that probably (?) had a rain delay.

They are using the sky sports coverage which is about 500% better than the rah-rah stuff we got on NBCSN or fox sports back in the day. The sky team actually knows a ton about what is happening, can explain tyre/pit strategy, will identify really subtle driving errors on replay, and is better connected to the teams because they travel with them to every location.

I hope they figure out the scheduling because I’m already excited about the coverage.
Whelp, Sky’s coverage would clearly have been an improvement if we got enough of it.

The side by side commercial breaks made it impossible to make out what happened to the Haas cars. It’s not Sky’s fault the American audience was hidden by a commercial break. Missed the restart, too. Broke away immediately after the finish, too. Just awful.

ESPN issued an apology to fans and promised to do better. That’s encouraging, at least.
 

SydneySox

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I realize that nobody around here gives a shit about F1, but ESPN took over for this season. The first race weekend of the year is taking place now in Austrilia, so there’s a time shift. They claimed they would air live but didn’t account for the DST in the US not being in effect Down Under. So, DVRs didn’t get qualifying last night.

F1 is buried in their Apple TV app and they put the results on the same page as the replay. ESPN sucks.
The first race has been in Australia since 96.
 

Average Reds

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What am I missing? Not sure what that has to do with my comment.
I believe I have the answer.

You stated "The first race weekend of the year is taking place now in Austrilia ...". (Note: I'm keeping the typo.)

He read it as: "The first race weekend of the year is taking place, now in Australia ..."

Just a slight misunderstanding of emphasis.
 

cgori

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Whelp, Sky’s coverage would clearly have been an improvement if we got enough of it.

The side by side commercial breaks made it impossible to make out what happened to the Haas cars. It’s not Sky’s fault the American audience was hidden by a commercial break. Missed the restart, too. Broke away immediately after the finish, too. Just awful.

ESPN issued an apology to fans and promised to do better. That’s encouraging, at least.
Yah, the race side-by-side commercials were infuriating. They managed to miss some key pit-stop windows that way, plus several retirements. I do hope they figure this out, because the actual commentary is quite good.
 

SydneySox

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I believe I have the answer.

You stated "The first race weekend of the year is taking place now in Austrilia ...". (Note: I'm keeping the typo.)

He read it as: "The first race weekend of the year is taking place, now in Australia ..."

Just a slight misunderstanding of emphasis.
Indeed - words. Sorry.
 

Ale Xander

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I like them, their family, and their extended family at BC, but is having both Hasselbecks (sorry, Nathanael) on at the same time, sitting at the same table, really necessary?
 

Detts

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M & M was trash for quite some time.

Greenie leaves and the show is actually fun now.

Real shocker there.
 

John Marzano Olympic Hero

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Each night before he goes to bed, Greenie says a little prayer that, someday, he'll become the new Mitch Albom
If there is a God and he's funny, Greenie would wake up with Albom's disgustingly weird ears.

When Albom was on the Sports Reporters, I literally couldn't concentrate on what was going on because I'd be staring at those strange cauliflower ears and the way his hair was combed to a precise 60 degree angle to hide just the tops, but not the whole of his fleshy satellite dishes.

I wonder if the other Sports Reporters knew that Albom's ears were taking the nation's attentions away from their thoroughly boiled hot takes. I bet that it would drive Mike Lupica mad with rage!
 

Detts

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Here's a little story I've told often in private but never in public. Several years ago I was the emcee of a high profile author event.
Whenever I do this, I prepare a lot, reading books by the authors I'm introducing, interviews and bios, writing up intros that are both informative and funny. I love funny.
One of the authors was a guy who wrote middle grade books with sports themes. I thought it would be funny if beforehand we worked out a several-step, silly handshake we'd do when I introduced him.
So my editor and I found him and his editor at the book conference beforehand and I told him I was going to intro him that night and asked him if he'd be willing to do a bit with me.
He said, "No, I don't do that," but in such a curt manor I assumed he was kidding. Everyone in kid lit is supposed to be nice, after all! So I kidded back and said, "Yeah, I heard you were a diva."
I hadn't heard that. Again, I thought we were joking with each other. But apparently I'd hit too close to home, because he turned his back to me, the back of his head literally an inch from my face,
and he began to rant and rave. Like, he was so weirdly upset that for too long I still thought he was kidding, until he said, "And this is why we shouldn't have women in publishing!"
His editor turned to my editor (they knew each other) and he said, "Sorry, I can edit him on the page but not in public."
I guess my first question is, if you know he's a tool, why take him in public? Why pay hundreds of thousands of dollars publicizing his mediocre books? Why not put that money toward talented authors who aren't tools?Later the publicist from my publisher told me publicists from his publisher were asking to know, who had told me he was a diva? Because he was on a witch hunt and someone was going to be in trouble.Um...no one told me! For years I've felt so bad that what I said caused alarm and perhaps harm to anyone from his publisher, but now I'm like, why am I taking this blame? Why isn't he feeling bad?Anyway. That night I took the page of carefully crafted and researched introduction I'd written for him and crossed out 2 paragraphs. Also, can we not send these tools out in public anymore? Thanks.
Oh, and I guess I can share his name. There were plenty of witnesses at the time. The polite lady in me is used to protecting people, but why? It was Mike Lupica.

— Shannon Hale (@haleshannon) March 19, 2018
 

TFP

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I've never heard anyone say anything nice about Lupica, and have heard plenty of stories like that one.
 

kenneycb

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How does that compare to whatever was in the space before? The initial rating isn't good but it doesn't tell me much as it is very much out of context.
 

kenneycb

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Worst ever isn’t context?
Worst ever rating for a show debuting on ESPN. Not all time slots are created equally, so no it is not particularly useful context. When was the last time a show debuted in that timeslot? What was the previous ratings of shows in that timeslot? Those are the two main questions that provide actual context and is not just a headline grab.

Reading the above tweet, it still wasn't great but it doesn't sound like the worst thing to ever air on the history of TV in the world.
 

John Marzano Olympic Hero

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It's on while I'm at the gym, and while I wasn't listening to it; the optics weren't very good. There were a couple of segments about stuff they found on the Internet. Mike and his three co-hosts were talking about what happened last night, which looked boring. And there was another segment too, but I can't recall what it was exactly.

I know that I'm not the target demo here (ESPN has long moved on passed me) but if they could just show an hour-long highlights show in the morning, I'd be a pretty happy guy. NESN is on at the gym too, but they broadcast infomercials at 9:00.
 

E5 Yaz

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It's on while I'm at the gym, and while I wasn't listening to it; the optics weren't very good. There were a couple of segments about stuff they found on the Internet. Mike and his three co-hosts were talking about what happened last night, which looked boring. And there was another segment too, but I can't recall what it was exactly.

I know that I'm not the target demo here (ESPN has long moved on passed me) but if they could just show an hour-long highlights show in the morning, I'd be a pretty happy guy. NESN is on at the gym too, but they broadcast infomercials at 9:00.
Jalen Rose looks very unhappy on that set. They promote himas the third wheel, but Greenie spends most of his time talking to Booger
 

DJnVa

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What was the previous ratings of shows in that timeslot.
Some of the info you want is in the article linked.

The show received tens of thousands fewer viewers than SportsCenter did last year on both ESPN and ESPN2. This means ESPN spent tens of millions of dollars to have less viewers than it did before this show even existed. Ratings were down double digits over the same time last year.
I mean, it's a Clay Travis link, it's not great writing, but it's clear the show is a huge ratings disappointment.
 

dcmissle

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Wait, golic and wingo have better ratings than mike and mike did? Is that true???
Greenie smart enough not to spend his $6.5 MM/yr. Also smart enough to know he cannot get Golic back. There was no going back home on this move. It’s likely the be a disaster. Skipper no longer there so the death likely to be quick and merciful.
 

ifmanis5

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I guess when it warms up they can go on the roof for some 'fun' but I have a hard time seeing this show working. 'Did you see the game last night,' some happy talk and a few D-list celebs already came and went with Cold Pizza. Greeny isn't a morning TV star either. It's boring and annoying at the same time.
 

Couperin47

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This will effectively end both Greenie and Beadle's careers, Jalen never had one to lose. After Cold Pizza died Jay Crawford hung on for dear life at ESPN knowing he would never ever have any other shot at a national gig, laboring in the obscurity of mid-day Sportscenters , until the latest housecleanings. He just accepted the position of "executive in residence" at his alma mater, Bowling Green U. I assume that means 'we'll give you a job but there's no way we can pass you off as any sort of an academic with a straight face'.

For 6.5 mil/year where can they park Greenie ?