Why Does SportsCenter Suck?

Having just read Those Guys Have All The Fun by James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales (aka “The ESPN book”), my mind has been on ESPN a lot lately. Having grown up in a pre-ESPN era (pre-Sunday Ticket/MLB Extra Innings/NBA Full Court, as well), I remember not really knowing who the guys on the field were other than recognizing them from baseball cards. I listened to a lot of Twins games on the radio, but I was lucky if 20-40 games per season were televised.

Enter the 90s when our family got cable. Suddenly, I’m waking up early (no small feat for me, at the time) to watch an hour of baseball, basketball, football, and hockey highlights every single morning. During the summer, I’d often watch SportsCenter twice. If I was home sick from school, I’d watch Sportscenter from 8 AM until about noon (at which point, Magnus ver Magnusson usually came on lifting an anvil on top of a rock). There was about a 15-year stretch of my life where this was my typical morning. Which brought me to a very important question…

Why does SportsCenter suck?

Is it because they got rid of the best theme music ever and replaced it with robotic HD crap? They kept the “da na na… da na na” part, but changed something that I’m sure nobody had complained about for the worse.

As an adult, my life has obviously gotten busier. I’ve made time for other things, though. It seems like SportsCenter has fallen through the cracks. Reading the ESPN book, I started questioning myself as to why I just don’t watch SportsCenter anymore. I like sports as much (if not more) than when I was a kid. I think I’ve come up with four reason why I don’t like SportsCenter anymore.

1) Anchors
I realize that I grew up in the golden era of SportsCenter anchors. Every morning, I woke up, hopped in the shower quick and then put SportsCenter on to see who the anchor was (I was always hoping for some combination of Dan Patrick, Keith Olbermann, Craig Kilborn, Kenny Mayne, Chris Berman, or Stuart Scott). Even the B-Squad (Jack Edwards, Rich Eisen, Bob Lee, Charley Steiner or Scott Van Pelt a few year later) were really good. They all brought a certain personality to the show. Whether it was other interests (Craig Kilborn), not being a team player (Keith Olbermann), other opportunities (Rich Eisen, Charley Steiner) or being overworked and underpaid (Dan Patrick), ESPN slowly lost it’s best anchors. Even the anchors that have stayed (Kenny Mayne, Stuart Scott, Chris Berman) rarely feature on SportsCenter these days.

Instead of replacing the anchors with equal personalities, SportsCenter has slowly gone through a “vanilla-fication” (which I’m pretty sure isn’t a real word) process. Many pages in the book “Those Guys Have All the Fun” are dedicated to talk about this process. One quote from Dan Patrick sums up the new attitude ESPN took towards it’s anchors.
[quote]It was all about who had control. I don’t think they liked making stars out of us. As Keith and I were told one time, “We don’t need another Berman.” Chris had established himself as unique and passionate, bold and fun, and I think they were worried that Keith and I were sort of levitating above everybody else.[/quote]

2) PTI

In 2001, ESPN developed a little show featuring two famous columnists from the Washington Post (Michael Wilbon and Anthony Irwin Kornheiser) who simply argued on different topics for a half hour. Throughout my college years, the show grew and grew to the point where it is now consistently beats SportsCenter in the ratings.

Nearly 10 years into it’s run, it’s become the premiere show on ESPN. Many attribute the format (especially the much copied rundown graphic) to the success of the show, but the reality is the personalities and opinions of Kornheiser and Wilbon are what make the show. I’m sure they are paid handsomely, but for what they are with to ESPN, they are surely underpaid.

3) Killing stories with too much coverage

There is such a thing as too much of a good thing. Name your favorite snack food (but exclude pizza, because it doesn’t fit the analogy). Say you love chocolate. If I told you that you could have a piece of chocolate for every meal (let’s pretend calories don’t exist in this imaginary world), you’d be excited. Now, let’s say we are going to replace all of your meals with all chocolate. It’s going to be chocolate milk and chocolate shakes to drink. The main meal is going to a crazy mixture of Kit Kats, Hershey’s kisses, and Snickers bars. After one meal, it might be awesome. But by the time you get to day number 8, you’re going to be begging for a piece of bread.

If I start talking about Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez, OJ Simpson, the Yanks/Sox, LeBron/”The Decision”, Brady/Manning, Brett Favre, Tiger Woods, Ben Roethlisberger, or the ESPY’s, there is a small chance I might send at least a small portion of the audience into anaphylactic shock.

Instead of just one hour of coverage that repeats itself over and over again, the “new” SportsCenter that runs pretty much all day tends to just beat topics into the ground. News stories that seemed to stay in the news cycle for one or two days now seem to be talked about for one or two weeks. Bigger stories which used to dominate coverage for two weeks now dominate for 2-3 months. Everything seems sensationalized. The innocence of watching sports is gone when watching SportsCenter. No longer can I have my Fruity Loops and watch some mindless highlights of the Devil Rays and Royals. Instead, the new “journalistic” approach to SportsCenter means every story is a big story and must be treated as such.

“Ocho Cinco tweeted this…”
“TO told reports that…”
“Curt Schilling had this to say on this blog…”

Stop it. I just want to know see Evan Longoria crash into the third base wall and make a catch while I’m getting ready for work.

4) The Internet

In some ways, espn.com is as important to me now as SportsCenter was years ago. It definitely isn’t my number one internet sports destination. I’ve got sites I prefer for baseball, basketball, football, soccer, etc. At least every four hours, I’m pulling up espn.com on my phone just to check out if anything big has happened.

There are a few things about the WWL’s website that annoy me (stop with all the videos… I don’t know that I’ve ever enjoyed one!), but it’s still a daily visit.

I think other websites along with social media (Twitter, Facebook, etc) have filled the holes in the gap once occupied by SportsCenter. Take Twitter for example… I find nothing more enjoyable than watching a game (of any sport) and following some people I find interesting. I really enjoy the wide array of strong opinions as to what’s going on. In a way, Twitter allows me to cater my sporting experience to suit my needs exactly. I know who’s opinions I respect and who I’ve had enough of. Rather than getting an opinion rammed down my throat (a la SportsCenter), I can choose to block, unfollow, or unlist someone who I just don’t find appealing.

Wondering if I was alone on this, so I emailed a few friends. Here’s what they had to say:

Seth Stohs – Twins Blogger/Podcaster/best Little League coach ever
I don’t know exactly when it happened, but I haven’t watched SportsCenter more than about a minute or two once every couple of weeks, and that’s only if I happen to flip by it during Top Plays. There are probably many reasons from the personalities, to the sensationalism, to the focus on the stars, and more. But honestly, I think a huge part of it is social media and the internet. Frankly, there is nothing shown on there that I didn’t already know about. I watched the Twins game, and I follow all of the people who would cover the games/teams that I care about most, as well as enough national people to get the rest of the stories.

Also, I think that I get so indepth on the Twins and their minor league system, that when I’m not working on that type of writing or podcasting, I would rather watch something non-sports related. I spend a lot more time watching The History Channel, or Law and Order, ScyFy, and occasionally even HGTV (don’t tell anyone!! Ha!).Those are things I never would have watched previously. So maybe my interests and such have just evolved over time, in general. Maybe I’m just getting old!

My buddy Swen
I have it on, but it is more like background noise that I occasionally tune into. I prefer to watch SportsNation and Around the Horn because I like the personalities that show through on show. I probably don’t watch it any more or less than I did when I was in college.