Sports News, or Sports Drama?
There has been a pathetic change in the sports media today, one that stands very counter to the traditional notion of sports reporting. Sports reporting used to be about scores and highlights, stats and outcomes, and other measurable aspects of sports. Nowadays, flipping on Sportscenter one is more likely to be inundated with a sappy, feel-good story or yet another obsessive piece on Terrel Owen's latest dramatics. Just like the sordid world news model the "regular" 24-hour news channels now follow, sports media has devolved into the same model, focusing just as much on dramatics and controversy as the nuts-and-bolts components that we want out of sports reporting.
Let's start with the feel-good story. Now, it's hard to write this without coming off like a total heartless bastard, but I'm very weary of the tear-jerker stories on Sportscenter. An athlete visiting a kid with an incapacitating or life-threatening disease is certainly commendable and praise-worthy, but I question the necessity of putting that story into the flow of a show designed to give sports fans scores and highlights. It comes off as cloying and manipulative of the viewers, and just gets tiresome. It's a quick mute around my house when the violins start playing, the soft-light fuzz goes on the camera lenses, and weepy family members start blubbering about whatever emotion-laden topic is being discussed.
It turns the entire show into a bizarre non sequitur of sports reporting. Here's the highlights and score of the Bears-Packers game, here's a bunch of people crying about something really dramatic and tearful with some melancholy string music, now here's some more NFL highlights. Mind you, I'm not arguing that these stories don't deserve to be told, I'm just saying they are displayed at a strange place in time. A dedicated show for people who want to see hyper-dramatic human interest pieces related to sports would be more compelling to those interested in those stories, because it becomes an extreme annoyance in it's current placement. Let's face it, ESPN has a lot of time to kill on it's myriad 24 hour networks, so I doubt finding a slot for it would be a difficult task.
On the flip side of the emotional coin, could Sportscenter get back to pure sports analysis without turning every show into a psychological thesis on the tortured minds and lives of NFL wide receivers? Terrel Owens especially has always been an obsession of ESPN in varying ways. Remember the last three years when he was relentlessly obsessed upon by ESPN in the most negative of lights, and certainly he gave them ammunition to write with, but the coverage was beyond absurd. I never before saw so many people passionately love to hate an individual. The coverage, as it still is regarding T.O, was banal, trite, worthless, and constant. I really could care less about T.O. and his ridiculous antics, but I could care even less what the reporters at Sportscenter think about him. All I want from them is scores, game recaps, and whatever catchphrase they currently think is utterly hilarious during highlights. I don't need them to be amateur psychologists to star athletes.
Of course, the "coverage" (but let's call it what it really is, gossip) on T.O. is much more positive this year than it was then. Gone are the nasty, dismissive comments once given to Mr. Owens, in are more permissive comments on his eccentricities. Last year, and the year before that, and the year before that, ESPN talking heads couldn't stand Owens in the slightest. Now, their attitudes towards him range from mild amusement to mild crushes. His behavior hasn't changed much, but the attitudes towards him certainly have. Go figure. Again, I'm not condoning or bashing his actions at all, I find T.O. to be very boring and unamusing but not irritating. This article is about ESPN reporting... which I also find to be boring and unamusing.
This is all pointless whining, since nothing is going to change the way ESPN runs their shows (and given they are making money hand over fist, why would they listen to some anonymous whiner on the internet,) but I miss the cut-and-dried manner that ESPN used to operate under. I don't even so much mind the humor and catchphrase quirkiness of the anchors, but the highs and lows of the feel-good and the sinister parts of sports thrown in is excessive and annoying. Just give us the scores and replays so we can go to sleep, without having to put up with the B-grade anchors relegated to the minor leagues of ESPNews.
