Another ESPN hater!

One thing the sports blogosphere didn't need more of was ESPN haters. Apologies. The Worldwide Leader (in opinion-mongering) used to be must-see TV. Much more so than "Friends". Fuck that show. Doggy-style. Sportscenter with Dan Patrick and Keith Olberman, or with Kenny Mayne and a rotting corpse, used to be informative and entertaining. It used to be about sports news. It was essential to being a sports junkie. Now, it's glorified sports talk radio. It makes me want to vomit, and not just because of their awesome and soon-to-be-overhyped Saints-Falcons MNF game.

Of course, I also have a specific gripe with ESPN that I share with about 10 Americans and any Canadians watching tWWL: Since they've quit airing the NHL (my first sports love, thanks to the Ray Bourque/Cam Neely era), it's been treated as though the league folded. Whether this is because they're no longer promoting it for their own ratings, or whether the league's banishment to Versus means it doesn't generate enough buzz for them to deign to acknowledge, no one knows, but it still pisses me off.

The whole problem with the network now is that they are so far up their own ass with vapid talking (yelling) heads and pointless debate topics (Who's Now? When's Up? Where's Waldo?). Pardon The Interruption may have been the impetus for it all. When it started out, it was a nice little show to watch, mostly because Wilbon and Kornheiser are good writers and are able to speak effectively (Emmitt Smith=not so much). Then ESPN made the mistake that so many other networks do:

Executive Windbag 1: Wow, America is really eating up "CSI"!
Executive Windbag 2: If only we had a show like that, I'm sure we'd get those ratings!
Executive Windbag 1: Well, we should take a look at some new pilot ideas for the fall season.
**Five minutes of 'thinking' ensues**
Executive Windbag 2: My head hurts. Why don't we just make a show like CSI, and call it something else!!
Executive Windbag 1: Great idea!! Creativity is overrated anyways.

(Disclaimer: If NBC picks up my pilot for "Law & Order: Meter Maids", I will forgive Executive Windbags 1 and 2).

So ESPN did what any untrained monkey would do and created Around The Horn, which is an assortment of cartoon characters with their volume stuck on 11. They gave famed douche-nozzle Jim Rome another show. Jim Rome is burning, so the rumors about him and Paris Hilton are probably true. And if he's been burning this long, and he hasn't gotten himself checked out, he gets no sympathy from me. Just man up and go to the clinic already. Then this virus spread to Sportscenter, and suddenly we've got analysts where the highlight packages used to be.

The problem is that ESPN stopped being a sports news network and became a sports issues network. Their own reasoning behind putting Tony Kornheiser in the Monday Night booth, then removing Joe Theismann from it (not complaining about that move) was that they wanted the show to revolve around issues instead of the game. As a result, I no longer know where to go for sports news and, more specifically, highlights. It just seems nowadays that the network has decided that it's all about them, and not about the sports anymore, and all I can say is: Fuck the heck! (Have the guys at Fire Joe Morgan trademarked that one yet?)

Solutions to the problem:
1) More Kenny Mayne on Sportscenter. 24/7 if possible.
2) Pair Kenny with Scott Van Pelt.
3) Eliminate Screamin' A Smith and Sean Salisbury so they have less people to discuss (yell) and analyze (misinterpret) every major story to death.
4) Eliminate self-serving, non-news "discussion" pieces like 'Who's Now?'.

I'm sure there's a lot more they could do to fix their intolerable Sportscenter and other broadcasts, that's just the immediate, obvious things they should be doing. I guess I'll close this post by linking to my new favorite blogosphere dig at tWWL: Deadspin's skewering of espn.com's Featured Comments. Deadspin commenters, you are the REAL heroes.