I think it is a fair assumption to make that pretty much every guy has watched Sports Center at some point in their life and most watch it on a regular basis. Whether it is the first channel you turn to when waking up, the channel you put on out of pure boredom, or the last channel you watch before going to bed, everyone knows the sound of da da da da da da. So what I am about to write may seem like blasphemy, criticizing the very channel that gets us by throughout the week, but I believe it is well deserved. This latest coverage of Tiger Woods is what put me over the edge. His 13 minute press conference on Friday did not deserve the amount of attention it received. ESPN discussed way too many specifics of his speech that were simply not important. Sports fans had to deal with many of these pointless topics such as why Tiger Woods did not take questions, the amount of people in the actual room, why his wife was not there, and the camera angle in which he was speaking at. The only question people should care about is when he will be back on the golf course. {and this was not even answered} His news footage was running for close to 24 hours on the network and the bottom line of ESPN had its own segment devoted to Tiger Woods. It got to the point where you literally had to change the channel.
I am not arguing that Tiger Woods did not deserve coverage because he clearly is the world’s greatest athlete, but there are other stories worth paying attention to that were overshadowed by Tiger’s Press Conference. USA Olympians winning gold such as Apolo Ohno, Lindsey Vonn, and Shaun White, the start of Spring Training for baseball clubs, NBA trades made at the deadline, and bubble teams trying to make the March Madness Tournament.
Now ESPN has done this before, over killing stories similar to the radio over playing Lady Gaga songs. Do any of these annoying topics ring a bell; Brett Favre, baseball players admitting to Steroids, the summer Free Agent Class of 2010, and Danica Patrick? The average fan cares about the news of many of these topics, but not to the point that ESPN commits to these stories. Sure they want to know where Brett Favre will be next year or if Lebron James is leaving Cleveland, but speculative stories with little reporting does nobody any good. To guess where one will play next season months before the start of their respective seasons or to overanalyze the responses’ after Mark McGwire and A-Rod gave interviews seems tiresome for fans.
I still love ESPN and always will. Sports Center has made the slightest changes which try to keep the show as fresh as possible such as switching to new anchors at noon, and moving to Los Angles. We as fans still watch and do not really care about their gimmicks, but as an audience all we are asking for is more highlights and less gossip. The Entertainment Sports Programming Network {ESPN} spends way too much time looking at the “E”ntertainment when they should do a better job at focusing on the “S”ports, since after all their target audience last time I checked are sports fans.
