Why I Hate ESPN

[Lofunzo]

what i love about espn: poker. all day every day. and midget billiards on the deuce. awesome.

i will now request a pm the next time that midget billiards is on. that is something i have to HAVE to see immediately.course that sounds like something that you would see on The Ocho.

I'll take a PM as well.

[CC]

I never I believed I would say this, but The Score owns ESPN. And that's including the fact that they show horse racing on Sundays and since it is Canada they focus way too much on hockey.

[niblet]

I love Stump the Schwab. There's two things I love about it:
1. Competing with my brother during the Schwab Showdown
2. How "into it" Schwab gets-- his fists pumping whenever he gets one right and an occasional bipolar outburst when he messes up.

[A Fleshner Fantasy]

what i love about espn: poker. all day every day. and midget billiards on the deuce. awesome.

i will now request a pm the next time that midget billiards is on. that is something i have to HAVE to see immediately.course that sounds like something that you would see on The Ocho.

I'll take a PM as well.

Same here

[hastur]

What I don't like about ESPN: everything mentioned thus far

What I do like about ESPN:

[sportsaddict]

Here comes my rant...

ESPN has gone the way of WWE...it's not about the actual sports anymore, it's about "sports entertainment."

Basically, they have turned all of their shows into glorified versions of stupid E! shows that are related to sports stars instead of movie and TV stars. To make things worse, the hosts of said shows think they are the funniest and most knowledgeable guys around when they are just talking heads that create drama and controversy to get ratings. To further their agenda, they constantly talk about the biggest and best teams and names in the game and conveniently neglect every other team since a plurality of people care more about them than any other team.

Therefore, you constantly get Red Sox/Yankees highlights and stories on Bonds, Favre, Kobe...they are all the drama queens who tell you they don't want to be in the spotlight yet continually draw a crowd to their every move. I am tired of the Red Sox and Yankees. There are much better stories that could be covered to possibly create something positive in the sports world.

Take my Pirates for example. It'd really be nice if ESPN decided to do an in-depth investigation and exposé on the owners and managers of the team to determine why the team continually sucks year after year. It wouldn't take much digging to realize that the owners don't care and are trying to make money instead of trying to win. This type of national exposure and frying could cause the owners to go into damage control and actually think about attempting to build a good team. The same could go for other teams in other cities and in other sports...ESPN could say they were the cause of it all, and boy, wouldn't that make them feel special?

Sportscenter is a crappy show these days; I don't even watch it. I watch ESPNEWS because they tell me about the games without all the stupid "Fact or Fiction" bullcrap. They also don't have all the former players telling me something that I already know. I could do what they do as could any other sportscaster in America, but since people recognize their face, they get a job on ESPN.

I actually enjoy the weird sports they show on Classic, so I am not going to complain there. Still, there are other ideas they could throw around that would be interesting...such as a fantasy football/baseball/hockey/basketball show with actually competent fantasy minds that could help people understand and enjoy the game more. I'm sorry, but Joe Theismann is not someone I want to learn fantasy football from. Yet they throw these morons on their super-duper fantasy kickoff show every year. Alas, "normal" people don't want to hear about fantasy football from nerds, so we get Nick Lachey and Chris Berman showing off their fantasy know-how each year. It's about as helpful as your appendix.

So anyway, the point is ESPN caters to a certain fan base - e.g. those fans who live on the East Coast in New York and Boston and those who are too brain-dead to care about any sports teams outside of those cities or the top players in each sport. Now, I'm not saying that Jeremy SchAAP and Bob Ley should be doing those odd "feel-good" stories all day long...but it would be nice if they covered all the teams in a more equal way, especially if their games were really competitive. I just don't see it happening any time soon - especially with the way American society is today. People eat up drama and like to gossip/talk about famous people getting into trouble. So, that's what ESPN gives them in the form of Skip Bayliss, Stephen A. Smith, and every story they do about A-Rod, Tiger Woods, Kobe, Favre, etc.

Until they get back to their roots and focus on the actual games, nothing is going to change.

And like they say in the WWE: "That's the bottom line, because MB said so."

You're right on with everything. A few weeks ago actually I was at a friends house and SportsCenter was about to come on- I immediately made the joke that the lead stories on their little intro would be the Red Sox and Yankees, because after all, they are the only sports teams that exist anymore. Sure enough, SC opens with "Off to a terrible start, what is George going to do? And find out why the Boston Red Sox could be cruising to October." It's just ridiculous at this point, I don't watch it anymore. Sox/Yanks, Sox/Yanks, all day long, and when it's not Sox/Yanks, its Giants/Jets or the Knicks and Isaiah Thomas or its Notre Dame or its Duke/UNC. I love the college basketball coverage, i think it's superb, but Duke/UNC is also ridiculous. You know there are other teams than those two, apparently ESPN didn't get the memo.

Basically, if you live anywhere not in the East (NE mostly), Sportscenter is AWFUL.

[CC]

I love Stump the Schwab. There's two things I love about it:
1. Competing with my brother during the Schwab Showdown
2. How "into it" Schwab gets-- his fists pumping whenever he gets one right and an occasional bipolar outburst when he messes up.

Schwab is a knob. I hate how whenever he gets a question wrong, he tosses in a little fact about the person/team that was the correct answer to prove he knew the answer, he just couldn't think of it.

[teddy ballgame]

I love Stump the Schwab. There's two things I love about it:
1. Competing with my brother during the Schwab Showdown
2. How "into it" Schwab gets-- his fists pumping whenever he gets one right and an occasional bipolar outburst when he messes up.

Schwab is a knob. I hate how whenever he gets a question wrong, he tosses in a little fact about the person/team that was the correct answer to prove he knew the answer, he just couldn't think of it.

The show has ripped a few people off. There was one show where in the showdown they wouldn't give a guy credit for something because he didn't have the last name or left off an s on the last name...something like that, but then a few shows later Schwab did the same thing and they gave him credit.

[A Fleshner Fantasy]

I love Stump the Schwab. There's two things I love about it:
1. Competing with my brother during the Schwab Showdown
2. How "into it" Schwab gets-- his fists pumping whenever he gets one right and an occasional bipolar outburst when he messes up.

Schwab is a knob. I hate how whenever he gets a question wrong, he tosses in a little fact about the person/team that was the correct answer to prove he knew the answer, he just couldn't think of it.

The show has ripped a few people off. There was one show where in the showdown they wouldn't give a guy credit for something because he didn't have the last name or left off an s on the last name...something like that, but then a few shows later Schwab did the same thing and they gave him credit.

Yeah, I agree that the show is biased towards him, but it is still entertaining nonetheless.

[dgan]

I was walking through Dick's Sporting Goods buying a new water bottle for my daughter who is in a track club this summer...uh, anyway...and they have ESPN on and it is NFL Live. So I look up, and -- "WHAT THE?!?!?!?!"

Bonnie Bernstein? When did this happen and who did she have to **** get that job? First Michelle "I have the presence of Bill Bixby" Bonner...now Bonnie "the OTHER sister cub" Bernstein?

I'm telling you, ESPN management is totally taken over by ABC execs now and these people know nothing about sports or what people who love sports like and dislike. Ugh!