I’ve finally put my finger on what’s been bothering me about the rapid deterioration of ESPN. Amidst all the preening anchors, panelists yelling at each other, in-SportsCenter game shows, there’s an overall organizational shift that seems to have grasped Bristol and changed it, for the worse.
Three or four years ago, Fox Sports Net went national and attempted to challenge ESPN’s cable-sports hegemony, hiring Keith Olbermann and Chris Myers, and embracing an innovative combination of regional coverage and youth-skewing programming. The plan, however, failed miserably, and within a year FSN had all but abandoned its attempt overtake the Worldwide Leader on a national basis.
So what did ESPN do after vanquishing its foe? Just as the WWF followed its conquest of WCW by more or less dropping its level of quality to that of its defeated rival, ESPN has, for all intents and purposes, become Fox Sports Net. Not only have they adopted FSN’s crude, vulgar style that seems aimed primarily at 14-year-old boys, they’ve also hired away much of Fox Sports’ primary “talent”- Jim Rome, Michael Irvin, John Kruk, and Stephen A. Smith have all made the jump in the last year; could Tom Arnold be far behind?
The website, incidentally, is going down the toilet too: what the hell is up with that huge, uncloseable ad at the top?
Posted by Stephen Silver at March 20, 2004 12:28 AMP.S. Jim Rome was at ESPN before Fox Sports... don't you remember "Chris" Everett?
Posted by: at March 21, 2004 01:05 AM