The Slow Death of ESPN, and other Sports Thoughts
Flopping Aces ^ | 05-03-17 | Brother Bob
Posted on 5/3/2017, 1:04:04 PM by Starman417
After enjoying the three day festival known as the NFL Draft, as well as the excellent picks made by my beloved Philadelphia Eagles, this seemed like a great time to weigh in on a few sports-related topics.
The Conservasphere has been having a blast dancing on the soon-to be grave of ESPN. After a few years of increasingly obnoxious radical left wing politics being forced on its viewers, as opposed to sports reporting, ESPN is in an economic death spiral. The Nation's resident sports scold, David Zirin, dropped a surprisingly coherent summary:
As Ley and others have explained, these layoffs are about the staggering multi-billion dollar price tags that sports networks are paying for the rights fees to broadcast games because live sports are the last shows that people are willing to sit through commercials to watch. They are also related to changing viewing habits that has more people “cutting the cord” of cable and the high costs of having ESPN as part of our cable packages.
But naturally Zirin couldn't just give us a smart take before going full idiot:
If you see any article that tries to blame ESPN’s economic struggles on the “liberal” tilt of the network, use those to line your birdcage. First, it’s not true. Second, it seems to be a reaction to the fact that ESPN actually has a laudable commitment to diversity and putting women, black people, and people of color in a position to actually talk about sports. This sends the alt-right sewers of the Internet and their minions at publications like the National Review into fits of hysterics. It’s an unserious argument made by unserious people.
Yep, the ink was barely dry on a fair point when Zirin had to fall back to that tired Leftist cry of racism. If you want a really good analysis of ESPN's downfall, head over to The Federalist for Sean Davis' story.
I'm right there alongside the many who've gotten tired of ESPN. After their heyday of the 90s ESPN started becoming unwatchable in the early 2000s. There wasn't a 15 minute interval that could pass without either some Sportscaster host belting out his catchphrase, one of those awful sponsored segments (remember those "Here's to football" Coors Light segments?), or two random guys screaming at each other trying to mimic the two idiots who started it all, Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon on "Pardon the Interruption". I slowly watched ESPN less and less until we finally decided to cut the cord. Shortly before we did (although this did not influence or decision), ESPN hit a low point for me in September of 2014.
For some backdrop, my favorite day of the football season is opening day - the optimism, the return of football, the unofficial start of fall. On this day the Eagles would storm back from a 21-0 first half shutout to beat the Jaguars. Even better, our division rivals Giant and Redskins lost, and our most hated rivals, the Dallas Cowboys lost to the SF 49ers in a three-interception game by their Quarterback Tony Romo. I hadn't looked forward to the following day's Sportscenter like this in a while. Instead of the football bonanza, the hour of programming was dominated by... the domestic abuse story concerning Ravens running back Ray Rice. So instead of enjoying football highlights half of the episode featured some of ESPN's personalities in a round table with some feminists lecturing us on violence in sports. Not that the Rice story should have been ignored - it absolutely deserved reporting, but not a 30 minute screed that was guaranteed to appeal to absolutely nobody who is tuning in to catch sports highlights. Sound familiar?
To Zirin's credit, he did briefly lament at the top of his post that the people being laid off are journalists, not the on air personalities before becoming your typical leftist tirade. The smarter analysis came from the close of Davis' post, which sadly I doubt ESPN will follow:
"The most interesting aspect of the mass layoffs on Wednesday isn’t that they happened, it’s who the network targeted. Not the high-priced carnival barkers and the know-nothing loudmouths doing their best to make Rachel Maddow proud. Nope. ESPN targeted sports reporters. In an effort to cut some fat from its bottom line, ESPN exchanged a scalpel for a chainsaw, skipped the fat entirely, and went straight to cutting out muscle.
If ESPN wants to once again be the worldwide leader in sports, it should refocus on covering sports, which used to be a refuge from politics and the news."
On to the next topic, we stay with Zirin. who back in March was calling for the players to go on strike and not play in the Final Four games of the tournament:
In 2016, ESPN college basketball broadcaster and longtime NCAA critic Jay Bilas dropped a bomb on a March Madness telecast when he said:
I think it’s almost offensive for those that are paid and making millions to tell those that are unpaid and the engine generating millions that they are blessed is equally laughable and kinda sad. Because [a boycott of the Final Four] has been discussed among players.
If this sounds vaguely familiar to regular readers it's because I addressed this same issue two years ago when Zirin made a similar demand of Duke's Coach K. drop everything, turn his back on his team and carry the flag for the Radical Left's outrage of the day. But regarding players unionizing, I came out in full support of this idea two years ago, If college athletes were to unionize I think they would get more of a practical education than anything they could possibly learn in those re-education camps passing for classrooms. As proof of the power of athletes Zirin cites the "success" of the University of Missouri's football team:
Anyone who doubts the economic power of young athletes need only look back to 2015 when Mizzou’s football team refused to play in protest of the school administration’s inaction in the face of on-campus racism. The university faced a $1 million fine and the president was gone within a week.
Some triumph. As I pointed out when this went down, in the era of online profiles every member of the football team is going to have a hard time finding work after graduation. And after my post went up Missouri became even more of a racial SJW hornet's nest, and as a result enrollment has plummeted while alumni donations shriveled. The beauty of being a Leftist is not giving a damn about who gets hurt by your ideas!
How about Colin Kaepernick? Last year I threw in my two cents on how the Radical Left praised his kneeling during the National Anthem, while ignoring a retired NFL player of far greater character. Apparently now Kaep is out of work not because of his actions but because of a conspiracy against the former 49ers quarterback! According to WaPo's Kevin Blackstone:
(Excerpt) Read more at floppingaces.net ...
