ESPN Eating Itself With Its Unbridled Growth

Many of you may share the same feelings towards ESPN that I do (I loathe how large the media giant has become and how they sell themselves out to the bigger markets and largely ignore interesting stories of small-market teams), but they do have someone to keep them in check with face-to-face criticism and her name is Le Anne Schreiber. If you are like me, you will do numerous fist pumps and repeat the phrases "Damn Straight" and "Hell Yeah" more than a dozen times while reading her column.

While I respect that ESPN has an ombudsman to keep themselves modest, I do wonder how serious they take her criticism. After all, baseball season has started and I would estimate that 50 percent of the entirety of their baseball coverage dwells on the Yankees and Red Sox. Tonight, for instance, there were two complete game shutouts and a triple play that were not deemed newsworthy enough to be in the first half hour, or the first package of baseball highlights (all AL East games) on SportsCenter.

The one thing that gives me hope is the launch of networks like the MLB Network, NFL Network, and Big Ten Network(Tip of the hat to a former employer, P.S. Call me). These stations must cut into the ratings of ESPN to some degree. Also sites like Profootballtalk.com and the now debunct FireJoeMorgan.com, have done a good job of highlighting the sins of ESPN and drawing viewership away.

If the current trend of sports media specialization continues, ESPN will lose a lot of their viewers to networks dedicated only to the things particular fans care about. It's a strange thing to watch such a bloated network begin to eat at itself because of its own unbridled growth.

I leave you with this bit of ESPN excellence...