I quit ESPN.
No, that’s not entirely accurate.
It might be more accurate to say that I stepped away from ESPN for a
while. I took a little vacation
from ESPN. It was driving me
crazy. I had to do it. And now that I have, I’m so glad that I
did. ESPN was slowly driving me
insane.
I should start by saying that I was an ESPN junkie. I could easily take in 3
SportsCenter’s, an Outside the Lines, Around the Horn and Pardon The
Interruption in a single day.
Sometimes it was more.
Maybe it’s not really meant to be watched that much? It’s certainly not healthy.
The problem became that I started loathing certain
people. It began with Brett Favre,
it continued to LeBron James, Dwight Howard, Jerry Sandusky and of course, Tim
Tebow. I hate them. I hate all with a mighty passion. Sandusky, clearly deserves my hatred,
but the others? What have they
done? Brett Favre should be
someone I hate as a lifelong Bears fan, but until ESPN ruined him, what I had
was a grudging respect for him. He
was a warrior on the field and I wished that he could have played for my
team. He was a class act and fun
to watch. Now, I get the anger
shakes the second someone mentions his name and if I ever see Rachel Nichols
reporting live from a high school in Favre’s home town again I cannot be held
responsible for whatever it is I do next.
I will plead ESPN-induced insanity and no judge in the country would
lock me up.
It’s not easy filling a 24-hour news cycle. Or, perhaps it’s that ESPN tries to
make it easy. Instead of finding
the best stories out there from the many professional athletes available for
study, ESPN finds a story, makes it bigger than it needs to be, inundates us
and saturates us with so much of the story that we start to resent the person
it’s about because we grow tired of them and then bleeds the story of every
last drop of blood it can give.
ESPN is a vampire.
Take Tim Tebow as an example. There isn’t any reason to hate him. None. He is a good guy.
I could do without the, “All praise to Jesus Christ, my Lord and
Savior,” stuff. Jesus didn’t help
you win the game Tim. He doesn’t
care about football. Trust me. He also doesn’t want to be in a
sentence that’s butted up against another where you praise your rotund,
loud-mouthed coach. I think Jesus
prefers to remain as separate as possible from Rex Ryan. But that’s it. That’s my only complaint about
him. I’ll give him this much,
Tebow walks the walk too. He
reaches out to the poor, to prisoners, to children suffering across the
globe. He doesn’t say bad things
about his teammates or the other team.
He plays hard. He gives his
all. There really isn’t anything to
dislike about him.
But, I hate him.
I do. I hate Tim
Tebow. Why do I hate Tim
Tebow? Because every time he
brushes his teeth ESPN puts together a panel of former players to discuss how
he did it, if he did it good enough and if he should be allowed to continue to
do it—or if he should be made to let his teeth rot. In fact, that Tebow hasn’t snapped and choked a sideline
reporter to death is yet another reason to like the man, but I am so sick of
even hearing his name that I could find out tomorrow that he’s the Second
Coming and I’d wind up converting to Judaism.
And these former players! ESPN hires all of these former players to do commentary and
I hate most of them too! Tim
Hasselbeck? Tim Hasselbeck is
going to sit on that fancy set and criticize professional football players? Tim Hasselbeck once had a 0.0% passer
rating in game against the Dallas Cowboys! He threw 6 completions and 4 interceptions in that
game! He may quite possibly be one
of the worst players to ever play his position but that doesn’t stop him for a
moment from spewing absolute venom at current players. At least Mark Schlereth had a notable
career and achieved some success as a player, but it’s hard listening to him
talk too.
Angry and loud, that’s what ESPN seems to coach their
analysts to be. Then they pair
them up on a set and let them scream at each other about how horrible today’s
players are and how tough it was back when they played. ESPN has become a retirement community
filled with angry, grumpy, retired old men who sit around and bitch about how
easy these young fellers have it these days and how they ought better
appreciate the struggles they went through to give them the opportunity they
have today. I can only hope that
ESPN hires one hell of an Arts & Crafts director to help get these guys
blood pressure down after doing all of their rant sessions.
It was during a Tim Hasselbeck rant that I finally lost all
patience and started flipping channels.
I came across The Dan Patrick Show, which, in addition to being a sports
radio show, is now also broadcast on television. Patrick, a former SportsCenter host who did his share to put
ESPN on the map, is now more like the anti-ESPN. When his producer mentions Tim Tebow, Patrick actually,
physically cringes. There was no
yelling. No one was
screaming. The former athletes
that he had on as guests gave insightful opinions and when they went astray,
Patrick reeled them back in—or at very least offered contrast to outrageous
opinions.
I had an epiphany.
I needed to give up ESPN. I
was in deep. I was an addict, but
I needed to give it up. ESPN, the
“Worldwide Leader In Sports” was making me…hate sports.
So, I did. I
gave up ESPN, with one exception.
I still DVR Pardon The Interruption every day. I enjoy Wilbon & Kornheiser. Wilbon, in particular, seems to be leery himself of the
over-hype and over-saturation of some players, teams and stories that ESPN
pounds home with the relentlessness of Fox News crafting story lines for the
Republican base. And it was with
that analogy that I understood exactly what had been done to me. I came looking for news and got sucked
into a deliberate and crafted narrative that was aimed at getting me riled up,
getting me to hate certain sports figures, getting me to be angry and most
importantly, getting me to keep coming back for more.
I had to get away.
And get away, I did. It’s
not easy though. I love
sports. I love talking about
sports, I love thinking about sports, I love hearing about sports and I love
watching sports. But aside from
PTI, I have made myself a promise to only use ESPN for the latter. I’ll use ESPN.com for news and stay up
to date with the goings on and scores.
I’ll watch PTI because I enjoy the banter of two old friends who, at
their hearts, are sports journalists and not rally men. I’ll watch Monday Night Football or a
college game, but I’m done with all other ESPN programming. Enough is enough.
I don’t like being manipulated. Sports are interesting enough that you don’t need to
manipulate anything. There are
enough compelling characters to choose from that you don’t need to create new
ones. I’m tired of angry old men, has-beens
and never-weres, howling at the moon.
I’m tried of hating people whose greatest crime is being mentioned every
2 seconds on SportsCenter.
I’ll miss the reasoned, intelligent discourse by people like
Jay Bilas and Kirk Herbstreit.
ESPN doesn’t always get it wrong when they hire former players to talk
about they games they played, but my sanity was on the line. They are amazing at sucking you in,
keeping you and not letting you go.
It’s good business. But
it’s bad for sports and it’s bad for me and it’s bad for you.
ESPN is the devil. Don’t believe me?
Ask, Tim Tebow.
