My ESPN question

Paging IJAG.

 

So ESPN = youth/community sports journalism?
That's even worse than Stuart Scott's NBA Def Poetry Slam.

 

Here's your ESPN schedule:

Winter (colleges): DukESPN, and ACCSPN. Also, NBASPN.
Spring and summer: YankeESPN and Red SoxPN. Some Barry BondSPN as well.
Fall: EaglESPN (all things Donovan McNabb) and Terrell OwenSPN.

 

Well, they haven't (yet) devoted a show purely for youth sports. But, a month back, when they interviewed the shy high school centerfielder who made a great diving catch in the state finals game, that was just plain stupid. And they made it the #1 play of the day. Any major league centerfielder would have been under that ball, waiting for it to come down.

 

Can't argue with any of this.

 

most of the phone interviews they do are just brutal. i saw the baseball tonight crew interview the kid who got a hit off clemens in clemens' first game in class A (or maybe the opposing pitcher? i don't know) and it was unbearable. there's no reason to do a phone interview on sportscenter, baseball tonight or any other show.

 

Maybe so, but it was still an unbelievable catch in the biggest game of the kid's life.

 

The most unbelievable play in the biggest game of my life was when I guessed the right vowel that sparked my teammate to correctly say the winning phrase during the fifth week and a weekly series of lunchtime boy-vs-girls first grade Hangman. Put me on SportsCenter's top plays and phone interview me live on primetime.

 

It's ESPNews or nothing for me. That and PTI.

But this isn't a terrible idea .. it's just like citizen journalism. You do something exciting in sports, and next thing you know, it's on sportscenter.

So next time Johnny scores the game-winner, you can be damn sure the first words from his mouth, before, 'we win!' are, 'we have to send that to sportscenter!'

 

I'm sure this was borne of the attention surrounding the mentally challenged 3-point bomber. Expect a deluge of more of the same until it skews the wrong way with the focus group.

 

Yeah, and? Who cares?

 

It's more like 45 minutes NBA, 10 minutes of college, five miscellaneous sports (read: everything else going on during the day).

Note to ESPN: Not everyone loves the NBA, and just because you have a contract to cover the sport doesn't mean you have to blanket SportsCenter with NBA highlights. That's what you've got NBA Fastbreak for, right?