The Sports Media Thread

[2001mark]

Primetime also felt required viewing because it predated the internets.

[DG_ThenNowForever]

I do think SportsCenter loses a lot of its immediacy when you can see Vines or GIFs without hearing ESPN's "hilarious" remarks over the top of them. We're in year 20 or so of "boom goes the dynamite." I think the format is tired.

 

The best sports show on TV is NBA on TNT.  Part of its success is that it's way underprocuded compared to ESPN. Shaq, Barkley and Kenny Smith have a wide latitude to speak to each other and the camera, and Ernie Johnson is an expert moderator.

 

ESPN has to balance more sports that TNT, but that's not to say they can't pick up what's working elsewhere. I think my biggest frustration with SC is that it's so dense and everything had to be moved along so quickly. Maybe instead of the standard highlight/highlight/highlight fornat, they instead carve out 10 minutes for an extended baseball conversation? Or some silly games? I don't know.

 

I'll watch Football Night in America over NFL Primetime because the product feels so much more sophisticated to me. There's probably something worth exploring there.

[OnWis97]

15 minutes ago, McCarthy said:

Good point. I tuned in knowing the scores for the most part, but I wanted to see how they were reached. I also stuck around and watched the repeat of the same show right after it because it was entertainment more than it was news. I had an encyclopedic knowledge of 1990's MLB, NBA, and yes NHL (because they actually covered hockey then) rosters and I don't anymore outside of a team's 1 or 2 star players. Sad!

 

Same here.  It's funny; I've always chalked up my reduced league-wide interest to getting older, having a bit less time, and moving on from cheering for teams not my own.  And that's definitely a part of it.  But may minimal SportsCenter viewing could be a bit of a chicken and egg thing, I suppose.  (I still think it's more of the former)

 

1990s SportsCenter was can't miss TV.  They were funny and informative.  They found a great balance between entertainment and still being serious.  For the summers I spent in Madison, I was watching virtually no live MLB and went into those episodes not knowing much.  So to a degree the "former" (not knowing the results) proved true.  But I also knew the results of NFL/NCAA Football/NCAA tourney, etc. and it was still fun.  

 

There have been a lot of little changes that have added up a lesser overall product.  A few examples:

• The 1990s "Plays of the Week" was far better.  They had those themes (first example that comes to mind was the them of "Music ratings system" and among those you won't see are former Viking TE Joe SENSOR.")  And just rattled off all the highlights in a 90-second clip.  Sure, they'd show a fan dancing or a mascot putting it's entire mouth over a kid's head, but who cares? The key highlights got in too.  Now it's taken too seriously.  Every day.  And they have to be ranked, 10 to 1 (it's almost an arm of "embrace debate").  To be honest, I don't even know whether they have "Plays of the Week" any more or if the daily list killed it.  For a while they'd replaced "fun" Plays of the Week with Chris Berman's Top Ten Plays of the Week and it was insufferable.  I think it was two segments.  And if someone, say, secured his 3,000th hit, that would be #1.  It was more like "achievements of the week and then plays after that."  It was so regimented and slow.
• Box score info.  After the highlight of Phillies/Astros, they'd cover the full screen with Runs/Hits/Errors and statlines for key players.  I liked that.  It set each game apart as important.  
• ESPNFL.  At no point of my life (or at least my memory) has it not been obvious that the NFL was #1.  Fine.  But it seems like it's maybe in the last ten years or so that ESPN has been feeding us the NFL 365 days a year.  Who cares about the NHL playoffs, or even the NBA playoffs sometimes when we can talk about what free agent may sign to add depth and special teams coverage for the Titans?  There used to be better balance.  Now there's always a boring summer NFL story (We had will he or won't he with Favre, two summers of what's going on with TO, Tom Brady for a couple of years, etc.) to occupy far more time than should be warranted.
• Personalities.  Certainly Dan and Keith are the gold standard.  But a lot of the good ones either eventually move on (Dan and Keith) or get full of themselves (Berman, who was great early in my opinion and a few others). Or maybe ESPN gets full of 'em.  Kenny Mayne was a great anchor but then they started having him do these weird stories that were far too long.

I don't necessarily have a problem with the fact that ESPN2 has a "debate" show on during weekday mornings.  And I don't really have a problem with shows like PTI or Around the horn, in and of themselves.  But sports coverage seems to have a parallel with cable news; there's far too much air time.  And it seems to result in a disappointing proportion of that time to Op-Ed.  

 

And I tend to agree that just doing highlights should serve most fans better.  Most of us are not sitting at our computers looking for Yankees/Red Sox highlights.  Yeah, we probably know the score, but as mentioned we kinda did in the 1990s.  So Mount Rushmore of _____ and the like is not necessary.

 

I was dragged kicking and screaming to this point.  My parents refused to get cable.  So when I arrived at college in 1993 (and particularly when I got out of the dorms), I thought I'd discovered a new gem in ESPN/SportsCenter.   And I still remember the days when my sports coverage came from local news and the boxscores in the paper.  So I appreciate that we have ESPN.  And they do some good things.  And I really don't have a huge beef with many of their on-air people.  But the Worldwide Leader may be a bit full of itself and they may (as allueded to by McCarthy and 'Red) be overcompensating for technology.  

[Sport]

16 minutes ago, DG_Now said:

I do think SportsCenter loses a lot of its immediacy when you can see Vines or GIFs without hearing ESPN's "hilarious" remarks over the top of them. We're in year 20 or so of "boom goes the dynamite." I think the format is tired.

 

The best sports show on TV is NBA on TNT.  Part of its success is that it's way underprocuded compared to ESPN. Shaq, Barkley and Kenny Smith have a wide latitude to speak to each other and the camera, and Ernie Johnson is an expert moderator.

 

ESPN has to balance more sports that TNT, but that's not to say they can't pick up what's working elsewhere. I think my biggest frustration with SC is that it's so dense and everything had to be moved along so quickly. Maybe instead of the standard highlight/highlight/highlight fornat, they instead carve out 10 minutes for an extended baseball conversation? Or some silly games? I don't know.

 

I'll watch Football Night in America over NFL Primetime because the product feels so much more sophisticated to me. There's probably something worth exploring there.

They do get beat by vines and gifs and there is something very real about all of our attention spans being so much shorter these days. I know I can't watch TV without either having my phone or computer near me. If I don't I feel antsy. So all of that kind of goes in the face of my proposal, but I'd rather have the highlights to provide context to my vines and gifs. I'd also much rather my background noise be highlights than Stephen A going "The Golden State Warriors of the National Basketball Association were simply outhustled, outplayed, and outmanned by Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook and the Oklahoma City Thunder of the National Basketball association in the fourth game of the two thousand sixteen Western Conference Finals and quite frankly I don't know if there's ever been a more disappointing and demeaning postseason performance from a National Basketball Association Most Valuable Player in my lifetime than the one displayed by Stephen Curry of the Golden State Warriors in game 4 of the Western Conference Finals."

 

Maybe it's not that ESPN's wrong about their #embracedebate format or having more discussion than highlights, and I'm sure they've done extensive testing that I haven't seen, but I can say with 100% certainty they're wrong about their use of Skip Bayless and Stephen A Smith heading up their #embracedebate format. Those guys are terrible and have signaled the downfall of the worldwide leader for a long time now. If Espen had more NBA on TNT types it would be much better. I watch them and I'm not an NBA guy. ESPN really seems to be into a$$hole exjocks and hottake artist reporters instead. What's great about TNT's NBA show is they don't go out there and drop soundbytes just for the sake of soundbytes. They speak their minds and if something whacky comes out then it's genuine, but Espen is going on year 5 of Skip pretending to hate Lebron James and it's so hacky. 

 

Here's another suggestion for a show for the sinking ship. Live podcasts. Get a host, bring an athlete and/or entertainer on, guests who are also sports fans, and shoot the sh!t for an hour. Just conversation. Men in Blazers is the closest thing to this format. I'd watch that. 

[dfwabel]

1 hour ago, DG_Now said:

I do think SportsCenter loses a lot of its immediacy when you can see Vines or GIFs without hearing ESPN's "hilarious" remarks over the top of them. We're in year 20 or so of "boom goes the dynamite." I think the format is tired.

 

The best sports show on TV is NBA on TNT.  Part of its success is that it's way underprocuded compared to ESPN. Shaq, Barkley and Kenny Smith have a wide latitude to speak to each other and the camera, and Ernie Johnson is an expert moderator.

 

ESPN has to balance more sports that TNT, but that's not to say they can't pick up what's working elsewhere. I think my biggest frustration with SC is that it's so dense and everything had to be moved along so quickly. Maybe instead of the standard highlight/highlight/highlight fornat, they instead carve out 10 minutes for an extended baseball conversation? Or some silly games? I don't know.

 

I'll watch Football Night in America over NFL Primetime because the product feels so much more sophisticated to me. There's probably something worth exploring there.

Yes. 

But that show is really hard to reproduce although the original NFL Sunday night show with Eisen, Irvin and Prime was really close.  If Kenny had gotten the Rockets gig, the show would have been ruined. 

 

SportsCenter cannot be that nor should it be. 

 

Original ESPNews was really freat, then I got a smartphone and a data plan.  Thus it became a dinosaur.  They realized that, so it was scrapped, like Headline News was reformatted. 

[DG_ThenNowForever]

There might be a market for TV you don't have to watch. Put on guys talking conversationally that people can listen to and look up at once in a while, and give them space to chat for 20 minutes at a time. It might seem like a backwards step, but so many people are distracted viewers anyway. Embrace that instead.

[dfwabel]

30 minutes ago, DG_Now said:

There might be a market for TV you don't have to watch. Put on guys talking conversationally that people can listen to and look up at once in a while, and give them space to chat for 20 minutes at a time. It might seem like a backwards step, but so many people are distracted viewers anyway. Embrace that instead.

Roy Firestone is still waiting for that "Up Close/Mazda SportsLook" reboot

[The_Admiral]

1 hour ago, DG_Now said:

There might be a market for TV you don't have to watch. Put on guys talking conversationally that people can listen to and look up at once in a while, and give them space to chat for 20 minutes at a time. It might seem like a backwards step, but so many people are distracted viewers anyway. Embrace that instead.

ASMR: Neil Everett Whispers Box Scores To You

[infrared41]

4 hours ago, McCarthy said:

I'd also much rather my background noise be highlights than Stephen A going "The Golden State Warriors of the National Basketball Association were simply outhustled, outplayed, and outmanned by Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook and the Oklahoma City Thunder of the National Basketball association in the fourth game of the two thousand sixteen Western Conference Finals and quite frankly I don't know if there's ever been a more disappointing and demeaning postseason performance from a National Basketball Association Most Valuable Player in my lifetime than the one displayed by Stephen Curry of the Golden State Warriors in game 4 of the Western Conference Finals."

 

 

There's no way Stephen A. Smith would ever be that concise. 

[Cujo]

Verne Lundquist leaving CBS following 2016. >> Brad Nessler signs on, will take over SEC PBP in '17.

[MadmanLA]

Awful Announcing has a breakdown of the upcoming "O.J.: Made in America" multi-part 30 for 30 film, which premieres first on ABC on June 11th before moving to ESPN for the final installments.  Besides the obvious stuff, it delves more into O.J.'s life from childhood to USC (plus the goings on in inner-city Los Angeles during that timeframe) to the Bills to his acting career to the murders. 

 

 

[tp49]

5 hours ago, Cujo said:

Verne Lundquist leaving CBS following 2016. 

Can't happen soon enough for me.  

[2001mark]

Toronto Sun's Bob Elliot retiring from the Blue Jays/baseball beat.  

 

I never read him much ever, because The Toronto Sun is for bird cages, yet he was always cordial & in the know for radio spots.  
At least he was better than Dave Perkins.

[CS85]

https://theringer.com/

 

The Ringer is live.

[infrared41]

47 minutes ago, CS85 said:

https://theringer.com/

 

The Ringer is live.

 

I read the Joe Buck piece. Not bad at all. Then again, I'm one of the few around here who likes Joe Buck. YMMV. 

[Kramerica Industries]

4 minutes ago, infrared41 said:

 

I read the Joe Buck piece. Not bad at all. Then again, I'm one of the few around here who likes Joe Buck. YMMV. 

 

One of the few, maybe, but I'll join that war with you, which is something I never would've said a few years ago about Joe Buck. Somewhere along the line (not really sure when it happened, exactly), he allowed his inner snark monster to become part of his on-air persona and he's been much better for it. I mean, at least it sure seems that way. Maybe he's always been that way and I only began to notice it when I realized my own real life personality was similar to what Joe was doing on the air. I'm not really sure.

 

Yeah, these days, Buck gets my A+ stamp of approval. The jury can be out about whether he does good work, but he certainly does entertaining work, and for a TV play-by-play where I can already see what's happening anyway, that's good enough for me.

[CS85]

Seems that the majority of negative reactions to day 1 of The Ringer are its sterile layout and Obama/Game of Thrones articles.  It feels like a great deal of people weren't done mourning Grantland.  

 

There's a lot of great resumes on The Ringer's writing staff, but I hope they refine themselves over the next year or two.  HBO may have mandated that he cover Game of Thrones, now that he's under their employ, but it's arguable that they simply wanted to cover pop culture with as equal a take as sports.  That broad of a brush may not be their best choice in the long run.  Refining their scope a bit to the sporting world would be in their best interests.

 

-----------

 

In other news, I'm reading a LOT of great things about 30 for 30's OJ Simpson epic documentary, and can't wait to see it.

[RyanMcD29]

I will say I like Buck as a baseball announcer, but he still isn't the right fit with football, especially for Fox's A-team.

[DG_ThenNowForever]

40 minutes ago, CS85 said:

https://theringer.com/

 

The Ringer is live.

 

I'm surprised they allow comments. I thought no comments was one of Grant land's positives.

 

Site looks fine for what it is. So long as they stop linking me to Facebook articles (the way their newsletter did), it'll be fine.

[The_Admiral]

46 minutes ago, CS85 said:

Seems that the majority of negative reactions to day 1 of The Ringer are its sterile layout

 

Yeah, it's just Medium's platform.