re: Spinoff: What Can Be Done to Fix ESPN?

I hate ESPN except for live games, but cari champion nude and im watching first take fo sho.

First of all, like others have said, they are in it for money and ratings so nothing is going to change because they're accomplishing the above.

But IMO, if this were some dream scenario, I would do a few things:

-Quit trying to be some damn trendy. These stupid contests like "who's now" and "what city is really titletown" and shite like that, stop it. Getting viewers to tweet comments then reading them on air, stop it. Which leads me to..
-Go back to what it was in the beginning. Highlights, highlights, and more highlights. That's what built the show and that's what people want to see. Of course, they might need to fill some more time, so I'm ok with some discussion panels. But these debate panels with 8 people, most of which are clueless and leads to arguing matches is no good.
-Nobody cares about viral videos. I don't care if a 10 year old girl in rec league made a half court shot. I don't care if a little kid in pee wee football broke 10 tackles for a touchdown. Nobody GAS. Quit accepting viewer highlights that 99.9% of the country couldn't care less about.
-Quit asking opinions from "experts" who aren't even in that field. I don't care what your NFL expert has to say about the latest hockey matchup. I don't care what Peter Gammons has to say about basketball.
-Quit letting the producers give the talent an angle to take. These are sports people who are on a sports show..give them free reign to say what they want. I remember watching a discussion a few years back (maybe 2007) and they were talking about who should go to the NCG and each talking head was given a team to make a case for. I think it was herbstreit that point blank said "well I don't really agree with this, but if I had to make a case for [team x] it would be..."

That's all I can think of for now, but that would be a good start. Btw, these are to fix Sportscenter specifically, not ESPN as a network.

Last yr ESPN had $6 billion in subscription revenues & $3 billion in ad revenues; overall, it's a $42 billion dollar company. It's not going to change one fricking thing. The suits in NY run the company & all the suits care about is ratings and how they relate to the corporate bottom line. Notice that no emails or tweets knocking ESPN itself ever makes it OL, only those bout a particular subject, pro or con.

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Ball's in our court, people

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Agree to an extent, but let's get real here. Even if everyone on this board starting watching The Lights, it's still not gonna do anything. Most sports watching people in America have gone their whole lives only knowing ESPN. Guys wake up in the morning, "think I'll put it on sportscenter". Even if there is a far superior product, average joe sports viewer is going to continue to watch ESPN just because that's what he's used to, is comfortable with, and that's what all his friends and coworkers watch so they'll have stuff to talk about.

I'd liken it to this whole USD and bitcoin thing (even though I only have a verrrrrrrrrrry limited knowledge of bitcoins). Bitcoins may be some revolutionary new system that is great in every way, but most Americans are just too comfortable and too used to good ole paper dollars and won't change for anything. Same with ESPN.

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Agree to an extent, but let's get real here. Even if everyone on this board starting watching The Lights, it's still not gonna do anything. Most sports watching people in America have gone their whole lives only knowing ESPN.

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If the people who truly care won't change their viewing habits, then no one will. There needs to be early adopters or else it will never go mainstream. I'm dead serious. If you complain about ESPN and you don't watch the Lights, you need to shut the hell up. You have an option, and the option is kind of great.

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What Can Be Done to Fix ESPN?

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Competition.


I think Fox Sports has a good shot at being the first major competition for ESPN in it's history

ESPN will have no choice but to step it up or they will eventually get beat by FOX Sports

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I just think ESPN is too entrenched in our sports culture and too mainstream for any competitor to seriously compete with it.

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It will likely take several years for Fox to compete.

but...

Fox baseball coverage >>> ESPN
Fox football coverage >>> ESPN
Fox CFB (Gus Johnson) >>> ESPN

Hopefully they can break into the market and start showing a weekly CBB game on Fox like they do with football

The weather channel made a cbb style tourney bracket made up of cities with the worst weather. Idiots.