ESPN bashing time.
I despise ESPN in many ways. Many, many ways.
Now, don't get me wrong. Having sports on TV 24 hours a day is pretty awesome. ESPN has single-handedly made sports into an American phenomenon. The money that goes into sports since ESPN started up has sky-rocketed. Players used to make thousands of dollars and made a meager living doing something they loved. Playing sports. Now, even the bench players can make millions of dollars a year basically being cheerleaders that might have to play if someone gets injured.
I have no problems with sports stars making millions and millions of dollars. If the teams can afford it, then their players deserve it. (Except for A-Rod. That A-Hole deserves nothing. The fact that he's getting paid about $30 million this year is ridiculous.)
No, my beef with ESPN is the way they commentate. ESPN only will follow certain sports. Within those sports, 90% of the talk will be about specific big market teams. I suppose I'm part of the community that gets the most upset. My favorite sport is soccer. My favorite teams (in sports that ESPN actually covers)? The Buffalo Bills, the Buffalo Sabres, and the Seattle Mariners. I'm lucky if I hear 1 story a week about any of those teams.
I have mentioned before that the major reason people in the US don't like soccer is because ESPN refuses to show important soccer games. (They won't even cover them on SportsCenter unless it's the World Cup.) But on top of this, even the sports they do cover only involve specific teams. Do you want to know why people become bandwagon fans? Because ESPN will cover those teams every day for most of the day. As soon as the Stanley Cup finals are over, only baseball will be playing of the sports that ESPN will cover. You know what this means for SportsCenter? Over half of the show will be about the Yankees and the Red Sox. Sure, they'll show a couple highlights of most of the other games. But don't expect any in depth analysis of anything except the AL East. In fact, the NL basically doesn't exist to ESPN. (Except for the Phillies.)
At one point this year, the Mariners were one of the hottest teams over a couple week stretch. Want to know the extent of the coverage? A quick highlight and a 1 sentence mention of their winning streak. If the Yankees had done that, they would break down why they were playing so well, which players were contributing the most, their future schedule and starting pitchers, etc.
This hatred for ESPN doesn't stop at SportsCenter. Live games are full of bologna. Showing a football game involving the Patriots? Better mention Tom Brady every 2 minutes, even when he's not on the field. Heck, even if the Patriots aren't playing, someone will be sure to mention him during a football broadcast. Also, if Tom Brady is having a bad game, the announcers will be sure to mention how "unlucky" he is. Or maybe his "receivers aren't getting open enough". If someone like Ryan Fitzpatrick (or any other run-of-the-mill QB) were to do the same thing? They would say how inconsistent that guy is. ESPN has man-crushes on certain superstars. These include, but are not limited to: Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Troy Polamalu, Adrian Peterson, LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, A-Rod, Derek Jeter, David Ortiz, CC Sabathia, Robinson Cano, Mariano Rivera and pretty much any other Yankee you can think of. Give me a break. Just because you want to have sexual relations with these "superstars" doesn't mean you should ignore the truth. Or ignore other potential stars that are on smaller teams. Want to know why many sports analysts didn't want Felix Hernandez to win the Cy Young last year? It was because he played for the Mariners. The Mariners weren't a good team and aren't a big market team, so he shouldn't win. This was disguised as a rant about how wins are the most important stat a pitcher has. But make no mistake, they just wanted CC Sabathia to win because he plays for the Yankees.
Oh, and what about cheating? Mark McGuire, Sammy Sosa, Rafael Palmeiro and Barry Bonds? Shunned. They are scum according to ESPN. Jason Giambi, Roger Clemens, David Ortiz and A-Rod? Well, let's reserve judgement or accept their apology. After all, they weren't the only ones cheating, so they deserve a break. Get caught stealing signs? Meh, short mention on SportsCenter maybe, nothing to get upset about. It's just blatant cheating, no big deal.
And you know what this all does? Makes more people become fans of the larger market teams because they are covered more and turning into idols. This in turn gives those teams even more revenue. The small market teams, however, lose money and suffer even more.
So go suck the big one, ESPN. You are terrible at what you do. Try being a little less biased one of these days. Give each team the respect they deserve.
PS: I didn't even mention the fact that ESPN tries to turn Spelling and Poker into sports... That always makes me shake my head.
