ESPN Bashing: Five Things We All Hate About the Worldwide Leader
ESPN is great.
In fact, it is the best sports network in the world. Part of what made ESPN great is what many of us dislike now. The super-sized personalities coupled with unoriginal phrases that are used every night as we get our daily fix of sports from Sportscenter.
The network has had a great run over its tenure and is going to continue to be the "World Wide Leader in Sports" for a very long time. There are still some things that need to be changed to improve the overall quality of the shows that they produce.
Let's begin.
Skip Bayless
1 of 5Let me start off by saying that I don't hate Skip Bayless. For one, that would be ridiculous considering I've never met the man in my life and probably never will.
Bayless has an ego larger than China and represents everything that is wrong with ESPN. He's loud-mouthed, arrogant, and—worst of all—is that the only reason he's on television is because of his moronic views. Going after top athletes is his calling card.
His targets include Chad Ochocinco, his teammate Terrell Owens, and of course LeBron James. Skip frequently gets on all three about promoting themselves and their brands over winning. While this may be true, it is a huge contradiction.
Bayless has used all three of these athletes to build his own image and celebrity. If he was so disgusted with the trio's antics, why does he publicly announce that he wants to sit across from them on "1st and 10" and debate them? Ochocinco's been the only one of the three to take the challenge on and the whole thing was a joke.
The days of Skip Bayless the journalist are gone and now ESPN has allowed him to turn himself into a cartoon-like character.
The ESPYs
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Yes, the ESPY's have gotten a little bit more tolerable over the years, but athletes belong on the playing field not the red carpet. The best thing about the ESPY's is the commercial campaign promoting the award show. When the best part of your award show has nothing to do with the actual ceremony, it's time to close up shop.
Simply put, the ESPY's are a gathering of famous athletes who want to dress and act like Hollywood celebrities for the night. The problem is that nobody cares about seeing their favorite athletes in a suit and tie accepting a meaningless award. The only award people want to see their favorite players hold are championship trophies that they've won.
Bringing in more celebrities like they did this past year makes the show much more enjoyable. When the ESPY's were first brought in, it was meant to be an award show mirrored off the Academy Awards and now it's becoming more like Saturday Night Live.
If you want to devote a program to doing skits making fun of King James and other athletes that's completely fine. Let's just drop the whole act of the ESPY's trying to be something it's not and have fun with it.
Beating a Dead Horse
3 of 5Brett Favre. Tiger Woods. LeBron James.
And Brett Favre again.
ESPN may be the World Wide Leader in Sports yet it tends to drift away from the sporting world at times to devote all its attention to one story or person. When Favre sent The Text Message Read Around The World, ESPN had a field day with a story that didn't have any hard evidence.
Woods falls into the same boat as Favre does, but in a slightly different way. Favre loves the attention. Excuse me he needs the attention. Tiger is much different in the respect that he just wants to be left alone. He keeps to himself for the most part and isn't exactly the most charismatic guy on the PGA Tour.
Yet he is golf's best golfer and has had a scandal for the ages. The coverage was absurd when his sex scandal broke out and it got to a point where people on ESPN were discussing theories of what happened on the night Tiger crashed into the fire hydrant (yes, I'm talking to you Bill Simmons).
Last, but not least, is King James and "The Decision". Whether or not you liked it, according to the ratings, you watched. That's all that mattered to ESPN in the end. But hey, at least we can say we were all "Witnesses" to the catastrophe that was Jim Gray.
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Predictable Predictions
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It's no secret the New York Yankees are a powerhouse franchise. It also isn't a secret that they won't make the World Series every single season. This doesn't seem to keep the so-called "experts" from predicting them to either a.) Win the World Series or b.) Make it there every year.
Thirty-six of ESPN's experts picked the winner of the World Series before the season started. 26 of the 36 experts picked the Red Sox, Yankees, or Phillies. Where are the bold predictions? Doesn't anybody have the cajones to go out of the ordinary with a prediction that ultimately means nothing?
Hopefully, there is a little bit more diversity when NFL Super Bowl predictions come out.
It's easy to go with the popular pick, the successful franchise, and the superstar-led team. But sports are full of upsets and surprises, year after year it almost never works out that the favorite is holding the trophy at the end.
Here's the link with all of the names and predictions made earlier this season.
WNBA
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This has nothing to do with sexism and everything to do with a boring product.
After the NBA's regular season is done and by the time the playoffs have finished, most of America needs a break from basketball. No matter how much you love the game there comes a point where you want to see a champion be crowned and the season to be over.
Just when most of us are turning our attention to baseball season, the WNBA rolls around and finds its way onto ESPN.
Summer time is when we watch golf, tennis, baseball, and NFL preseason games. You'll notice that all of those sports are played outdoors minus a few dome stadiums. Not many people want to watch an indoor basketball game in the middle of the summer, let alone buy a ticket to one.
ESPN desperately needs to ditch the WNBA as soon as its contract runs. It's a flailing league that doesn't have potential to go anywhere because the demand to see the product just isn't there.
The truth hurts sometimes and this is one of those times.
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