Death by A Thousand Cuts: The End of my Relationship with SportsCenter
As a kid I watched SportsCenter every single morning, and just about every night. The famous “da-nah-nah-da-nah-nah” jingle was the soundtrack to my, and many other young boys, lives. ESPN has even made commercials focused around the ubiquity of the tune. Many of us dreamt of one day having our own highlights appear on the show alongside the witty commentary of anchors Stu Scott, Scott Van Pelt or Neil Everett. Back then everything in sports revolved around ESPN’s gravitational force.
These days I can’t remember the last time I actively watched SportsCenter. I still see SportsCenter rolling away on plasma screens at restaurants or bars with sound turned off, but I never sit at home with SportsCenter on my TV to watch the highlights or catch up on the world of sports. What’s even more strange is that I can’t remember when my shift away from SC occurred. I used to watch constantly, and now I actively avoid watching.
SportsCenter is a dreary and passive experience for a discerning sports fan. It’s a bundled product where they want to cover the nation’s sports fan’s interest in a one-size fits all package. Producers at ESPN determine what team’s highlights I see, when those highlights appear on the show and the depth and focus of the content. They decide these things based on what they think the average sports fan wants to see. This results in a lot of wasted time watching highlights and debate that I do not care about. I as a sports fan who prefers the NBA and the Premier League to the NFL or MLB, have no agency in this bundled model.
As a result of this lack of discretion in content delivery, and a number of other factors, subscribers to ESPN continue to decrease, especially among young people. For me it’s not about length, most of the highlights I watch through YouTube created by FreeDawkins or XimoPrieto exceed 8 minutes, whereas packaged TV highlights often don’t go beyond 45 seconds. With YouTube content the difference doesn’t come in time, but in efficiency. If I’m only interested in seeing what John Wall did in his game last night, then I can watch a compilation of every play he was involved in throughout the contest. This means no time is wasted with plays or players that do not interest me. When I have no time to spare this efficiency is essential.
ESPN is combating this subcriber loss with its “Embrace Debate” model which attempts to change its focus from information delivery to debate and opinion. This initiative falls flat for me because it still doesn’t address to core issue of how and when I consume my content. For example, If I want sports discussion, I listen to a podcast. It allows for more depth in conversation, and I can listen to it on the go. As a student in Los Angeles, I spend a lot of time walking to class or driving my car, and I fill these times with podcasts. ESPN has certainly launched plenty of podcasts recently, but using the debate as an attraction approach to television does not make me want to watch their programming. I don’t want to spend time at home listening to two blowhards yell at each other about LeBron James’ clutch gene.
As of now, unless ESPN addresses these problems, or more comprehensivel changes their content delivery model, my relationship with SportsCenter is dead.
