Sports Without a Center
How ESPN and Stephen A. Framed Kevin Durant’s Move to the Warriors
On July 4th, 2016, my team trotted out a two-man outfield. I was supposed to be in left field, but I was playing left bleacher.
I was at a sleep-away camp in Maine where we played every sport. Baseball was never my favorite, but I wouldn’t have been playing no matter what the game was. I was preparing my escape. I needed to get to a TV.
Kevin Durant, one of the best basketball players in the world, was a free agent. And on this day, he was set to announce which team he would join. Camp baseball paled in comparison. Basketball history was about to be announced.
For the folks reading this article who know who Antonio Gramsci is but not Kevin Durant, here’s some brief context. He is so great that he has transcended the need to spell out his full name. The whole sports world can recognize him by his initials: KD.
KD is one of the best NBA players of our generation, and had just led the Oklahoma City Thunder to the brink of the Finals. The only team standing in their way was the Golden State Warriors, who had won an NBA-record 73 games in the regular season. The Thunder shocked their opponent by taking a 3–1 lead in the best-of-seven series. But Durant & Co. could not finish the job. The Warriors won three in a row and sent the Thunder packing.
But after Durant packed, where would he move his luggage? I spent the entire baseball game with a few other holdouts of the day debating that question. We explained that we could not perform athletically under the duress of KD’s looming decision. One hopeful Bostonian had used a Sharpie to turn a white tank top into a makeshift Durant Celtics jersey.
After a camp baseball game ends, the counselors would make the kids help put away equipment. But I had anticipated this. While the game wound to a close, I scooted to the edge of the bleachers. And when every adult’s head was turned, I escaped. I made a mad dash to the rec hall. Jumped up the stairs two at a time. No time to change my cleats, I scuffed up the wooden floor and grabbed the TV remote. Naturally, I put on ESPN. I was a little early, SportsCenter was still showing tennis highlights.
A couple minutes later, the screen flashed with all caps “BREAKING NEWS.” I ran out to the porch, where the other campers had been freed from the baseball diamond and were approaching the rec hall. In the most Paul Revere-esque moment of my lifetime, I yelled to the senior quad:
“Kevin Durant is a Warrior!!!”
I was met by a symphony of “no fucking way” and “shut the fuck up.” Nobody believed me until they made it up the stairs and saw the TV for themselves. The kid in the makeshift Celtics tank top threw a chair across the room.
And then the room got quieter. We started actually listening to what the talking heads had to say. The first person who the SportsCenter anchors brought on for commentary was Stephen A. Smith. Together, we watched this:
“The weakest move I’ve ever seen from a superstar.”
The room cheered when Stephen A. opened with that dagger. Angry fans felt validated in their anger. Honestly, I didn’t have much of a personal stake in the matter. I’m a Knicks fan, and knew we had no shot at KD. But I joined in. I agreed with Stephen A. in the moment, and loved the opprotunity to make fun of a celebrity who is more successful than me. We all broke down how lame it was for Durant to join the team that had just beaten him. As 14-year olds at an all-boy summer camp, we used cruder language than Stephen A. But the message was the same.
Sports History As History
Looking back on this moment, I no longer feel galvanized by Stephen A.’s takedown of Durant. Now that I am pursuing a career in sports media, this clip feels off to me. Something does not add up in the presentation, tone of voice, and branding of SportsCenter.
To understand all of the factors at play in this two minute snippet, I will not look at it from my own point-of-view as a teenage audience. Instead, this paper will examine the telling of sports history using theories about “real history” and culture.
Michel-Rolph Trouillot’s “Silencing the Past” is a theoretical analysis on the production of history. Trouillot believes that to grasp the public’s understanding of history, we must look at how that history was told. The narrators, and the medium through which they narrate are crucial.
From the mid 1950s to the late 1960s, Americans learned more about the history of colonial America and the American West from movies and television than from scholarly books. Remember the Alamo? That was a history lesson delivered by John Wayne on the screen.” (Trouillot, 20–21)
In this article, I will look at Stephen A.’s monologue as a presentation of history to the masses I believe it represents a convergence in how sports news is presented. To do understand its significance, I will look at the history of SportsCenter as a news-reporting institution. I’ll make the case for it as a widely respected institution for breaking news, which has been established for decades.
SportsCenter’s respected status is what makes this clip so jarring to me. Just after the news was reported, the first analyst SC brought on leveled personal attacks against Durant’s character. While that kind of rhetoric is normal on shows like First Take, Stephen A.’s usual stomping grounds, it sets a bad precedent when it is the presentation of sports history.
Indeed, this clip represents a larger shift in SportsCenter into a more narrative-driven model of talking about sports. While this is fine in a vacuum, the program still carries the status of “news” in the world of sports. Keeping the exterior presentation of news with the content of sports debate shows sends mixed signals to the audience. Stephen A. does not come off as a hot-take guy, he sounds like he is calmly reporting on the facts.
SportsCenter wants to have it both ways. It is embracing its history as a source of news, while trying to expand into the modern age as a more opinion-driven program. By conflating these two, they allowed Stephen A.’s opinionated rant to shape the actual reporting, and thus mass understanding, of basketball history.
The Big Show
“If any of the world’s religions are correct, Dan [Patrick] and I, probably separately, will be spending 1,000 years in purgatory, while somebody asks us and Robert Oppenheimer, ‘Did you think about what you were doing — and what other people might do with it?’”
Keith Olbermann, SportsCenter host (1992–97, 2017–2020)
Sports needed a hub. Before the late seventies, it was relegated to being a side-dish to the news. Local broadcasts might dedicate one segment of the late news to sports. Newspapers might give sports its own section, but even then, it was not the main attraction. There was no central entity for sports.
That changed with ESPN. On September 7, 1979, 1.4 million homes tuned into its maiden voyage. Lee Leonard announced the network’s thesis statement with the first words ever spoken on its airwaves.
“If you are a fan, what you’ll see in the next minutes, hours and days to follow may convince you you’ve gone to Sports Heaven. Beyond that blue horizon is a limitless world of sports, and right now you are standing on the edge of tomorrow’s sports 24 hours a day, seven days a week with ESPN: the Total Sports Cable Network.”
Lee Leonard
24 hours of sports. It was a tremendously ambitious project. Father and son duo Bill and Scott Rasmussen launched the channel in 1979, before the heyday of cable. Media Village writes how at that time, “there were no other 24-hour cable networks. CNN wouldn’t launch till the next year, and MTV would be the year after. HBO played movies for only a few hours each day.”
The Rasmussens knew that games were not enough to fill up their network. Not with a 24-hour slate to fill. And on that very first broadcast, Lee Leonard introduced the show that would become the staple of ESPN.
Chris Berman, the first anchor of SportsCenter, was just the first of many hosts who would go on to fill his shoes. The show would eventually move to a new set and revamp its production quality. The show was yet to create its regular segments, such as the now-famous Top 10 plays of the day countdown.
But for the most part, the tone was set from the beginning. If you watch that clip without sound (or knowledge of the English language), you would probably guess that it was the news. And in the world of sports, SportsCenter is the news. It is always hosted by even-keeled, sharp anchors. From 1979 to the present, the elevator pitch for SportsCenter is “sports with the ethos of news.”
This ethos was best captured by Dan Patrick and Keith Olbermann. The duo launched the already-successful program into a new realm of cultural relevance. They helmed the ship together from 1992–97. Olbermann’s signature introduction sarcastically announced the stakes: “Welcome to the Big Show.”
This introduction captures the paradox at the heart of SportsCenter. It’s not covering the “big” news of the world. This afforded their hosts more room for levity and humor. However, the show also had to keep its overall credibility as a reporting institution. Bryan Curtis wrote about the level of difficulty in his profile of Patrick and Olbermann for The Ringer.
“The difference between ’90s SportsCenter and a modern comedy show is that SportsCenter was much, much harder. Patrick and Olbermann had the mandate to deliver the news instead of just riffing off it.”
The duo balanced that tightrope with a self-mocking attitude. Jokes were quick and witty. After delivering a straight update on some news, they’d throw in a one-liner before cutting away. Curtis wrote about how the duo’s combination of humor and knowledge made them America’s most trusted authority on sports.
“Your local sports guy was commanding; Dan and Keith were self-mocking. Your local guy knew nothing about sports; Dan and Keith knew everything. Your local guy was an authority figure; Dan and Keith were your friends.”
The Big Show didn’t have a politics, per se. But it had a kind of populism, which, in political form, is the lingua franca of funny anchorman shows today. The Big Show was against corporate stadium names. Against greedy owners. Against strike-breaking baseball players.”
Bryan Curtis
The Big Show had a one-of-one place in media. Usually, any “mainstream” source of news was met with massive skepticism. But this era of SportsCenter balanced real journalistic standards with the ethos of real sports fandom. It felt authentic in a way that corporate entities rarely manage. And it still has that feeling of authenticity today.
The Intellectuals
By appearing on SportsCenter, analysts are turned into “intellectuals.” When I use that word, I am not speaking about their actual knowledge or smarts. I use it like Antonio Gramsci, an Italian theorist who extensively wrote about the term in his Prison Notebooks. In his essay appropriately titled, “The Intellectuals,” intellect has nothing to do with achieving that status.
“All men are intellectuals, one could therefore say: but not all men have in society the function of intellectuals. When one distinguishes between intellectuals and non-intellectuals, one is referring in reality only to the immediate social function of the professional category of the intellectuals”
(Gramsci, 9)
When Gramsci refers to the “function” of intellectuals, he means their ability to actually shape public thought. This means two things.
- They must have an audience
- Said audience must accept them as an authority of knowledge
In his essay, “Some Preliminary Points of Reference,” Gramsci expands on the power of the intellectual.
“For a mass of people to be led to think coherently and in the same coherent fashion about the real present world, is a “philosophical” event far more important and “original” than the discovery by some philosophical “genius” of a truth which remains the property of small groups of intellectuals.”
(Gramsci, 325)
By appearing on SportsCenter, “anchors” and “analysts” are similar labels to intellectuals. These people have been called upon by our most trusted authority on sports to tell us what’s going on. They carry an immediate respect and distinction.
So what happens when ESPN and SportsCenter actively try to be less objective?
Sports Without A Center
The original premise of SportsCenter’s utility was its easily available information. But now that consumers can find that information anywhere on the internet, SC has shifted to become a more commentary-driven program. This shift in content has not coincided with a shift in presentation. SportsCenter still had the ethos of the news.
Scott Van Pelt has hosted the midnight edition of SportsCenter since 2015. He told Bryan Curtis one way the shifting media landscape has changed his job.
“You’d do a 30-second on-camera teasing a highlight as if the result were in doubt. ‘The Twins and Indians — could the Twins keep up their momentum…?’
Now, I give you the final [score] before the highlight, because I know you already know. It was constructed so differently because it could be.”
Scott Van Pelt (SC host, 2015- present)
When the Rasmussens founded ESPN, it was the only way that many fans could get out-of-town scores. You tuned in to find out who won the game. But with the internet, SC lost one of its biggest advantages. The program has always featured commentary in addition to reporting, but now it is more heavily reliant on narratives and subjective takes.
Jacob S Turner writes that, “Whereas in the past SportsCenter was able to merely offer general surveillance of the sporting world, shifts in viewer practices have demanded that SportsCenter also address the audience’s entertainment and social needs in addition to meeting their surveillance needs.”
Turner quantified SportsCenter’s evolution with a remarkable study published in the University of Nebraska Press Journal of Sports Media in 2014. He conducted a longitudinal content analysis that compares SportsCenter episodes from 1999 and 2009. Turner divided stories into two categories. The “information” model “features facts, certitude and accuracy.” In contrast, the “story” model “focuses on entertainment, personality and drama.”
Perhaps ESPN’s SportsCenter has become so dependent on the story model that it has abandoned the information model and thus now prefers eloquence and flourishes over objective facts and broadsheet reportage. Indeed Crawford (2004) points out, “Much of the language used to describe sport stars in the mass media draws on the narrative of melodrama”
Turner ultimately determined that his results “lend some credence to the idea” that the story model has become the dominant way that SC frames sports news.
“In 2009 SportsCenter offered the viewer more sensationalism, more drama, more popular culture stories about sports than it did 10 years earlier.
Sure, the quantitative data is persuasive. But I think the best piece of evidence that SportsCenter has shifted from information to melodrama is how they reported Kevin Durant’s signing with the Golden State Warriors.
Stephen A.
Dan and Keith- the old stars of the worldwide leader in sports- delivered their lines with a witty, ironic disposition. The network’s new darling, Stephen A. Smith, has a different style. Smith is known for his wildly passionate rants and arguments. He hosts First Take, a Monday-Friday debate show.
First Take is famous for its fireworks. The most watched clip from the program on ESPN’s YouTube channel is a 2017 interview with Lavar Ball. Watching Stephen A.’s co-host Molly Qerim attempt to toss to a commercial break shows all the difference between this program and SportsCenter.
First Take is not imitating the news. It’s WWE. The show is over-the-top and Stephen A. is the perfect man to helm it. He’s one of the great entertainers in sports media, and a master of the television hot take. This show is not meant to prop up “intellectuals” by Gramsci’s definition. Audiences are aware that the show is more performance than analysis.
But on Independence Day 2016, Stephen A. didn’t bring the fireworks to SportsCenter. At least not through his tone of voice. Unlike that clip with Levar Ball, Stephen A. is not hamming it up. His analysis of Durant’s decision is practically monotone. Even his dramatic opening line, declaring it the “weakest move I’ve ever seen from a superstar,” is practically delivered in monotone (by Smith’s standards).
Stephen A. knows he’s on SportsCenter, not First Take. His demeanor takes the shape of the program. As an SC analyst, he is the sports equivalent of an intellectual. And he’s not only being brought onto the Big Show, but at the biggest moment possible. The news has just broken. While SportsCenter is not able to break as much news as they used to, this was the rare instance where they were informing their audience on a humungous story.
When the signing was made public moments before Stephen A. was introduced, it was announced like a real piece of news.
Stephen A. is brought on like a cable news guest. He is in the same type of “box” virtual guests constantly appear in on the real news. Below him, the crawl continued to display the “BREAKING NEWS,” reiterating the moment’s importance. When put side-by-side with the“real news,” the two are almost indistinguishable.
Because of the external presentation of SportsCenter and the heightened importance of this moment’s timing, coming right after the news was broken, Stephen A.’s take held real national importance. He was not on SportsCenter to report the news. He was on SportsCenter to be the news. Immediately after the segment, SC’s twitter “reported” on their own segment by posting this image:
Throughout this entire speech, Stephen A uses the “story” model of presenting media. He compares Durant to LeBron James, who had left the Cleveland Cavaliers to join the Miami Heat in 2011. James was not on the Heat anymore, but Smith still took the opportunity to compare the competitiveness of the two superstars,
I think it’s incredibly weak, and I don’t want to hear any comparisons to that of LeBron James. When LeBron James left Cleveland for South Beach, when LeBron left Cleveland, the cupboard was bare. Uh, he was the, basically, he was basically the only dude in Cleveland. It was LeBron James and a bunch of no names. In the case of Kevin Durant, you have one of the top five players in the world as your teammate.
This is the type of argument Smith makes all the time on First Take. And if he gave this speech on that show, I wouldn’t flinch. First Take is a debate show, constantly pitting players against each other through a historical light. In sports media, this is fair game.
But SportsCenter as an institution is defined by its impartiality. When Dan Patrick, Keith Olbermann, or any excellent anchor such as Stuart Scott added some flavor to their analysis, it was in the form of a joke. But Stephen A. is dead serious- while possessing the social function of a sports intellectual.
Michel-Rolph Trouillot wrote about how many Americans learn history through movies instead of textbooks. But at least there are textbooks on history. Sports has no accepted academic sourcing. The closest mainstream option is SportsCenter. Here, the story model of sports is presented as if it was straight reporting. The desire to expand SportsCenter beyond its informational roots contrasts with it maintaining the exterior and demeanor of straight news.
The Stakes
So why does this matter? Who cares if a sports analyst is kinda mean to an athlete in the wrong setting?
Gramsci writes how an intellectual can launch a “philosophical movement,” a new line of thinking. When the masses of sports fans see SportsCenter as the most objective, reasonable source of sports news, Stephen A.’s rhetoric is a shifting of norms. Now, even the guy in a suit on SC is personally calling Durant weak.
If SportsCenter is the most professional output, it’s up to fans to be less professional. And they had no trouble doing that. Durant received an unfathomable amount of hate on social media. It’s impossible to pin all of that on Smith and the forces behind SportsCenter.
But in 2023, Durant remains the face of “uncompetitive” free agency decisions. Just last week, after Shohei Ohtani signed with the Dodgers, I saw this on Twitter:
In a widely expanding mediasphere, there is room for both SportsCenter and debate personalities like Stephen A. They serve two different purposes, and both excellently deliver entertaining content.
But the rise of the internet has caused ESPN to mash the two worlds together. The lines between objectivity and subjectivity are fuzzier than ever. And the responsibility lies on the narrators of sports history to understand how their medium, and program of choice sends a message to their audience.
Works Cited
Turner, Jacob S. “This Is SportsCenter: A Longitudinal Content Analysis of ESPN ’s Signature Television Sports-News Program from 1999 and 2009.” Journal of Sports Media, vol. 9 no. 1, 2014, p. 45–70. Project MUSE, https://doi.org/10.1353/jsm.2014.0001.
“HISTORY’s Moment in Media: ESPN Debuted 42 Years Ago and Forever Changed Sports Broadcasting.” 2021. Media Village. September 7, 2021. https://www.mediavillage.com/article/historys-moment-in-media-espn-debuted-42-years-ago-and-forever-changed-sports-broadcasting/.
Nagel, Dave. “ESPN, Inc.: 1980 in Review.” ESPN Press Room U.S., 2 Jan. 1981, https://espnpressroom.com/us/press-releases/1981/01/expanded-programming-household-growth-highlight-espns-first-full-year/
Gramsci, Antonio, 1891–1937. Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci. New York :International Publishers, 1971.
Trouillot, Michel-Rolph. Silencing the Past (20th Anniversary Edition): Power and the Production of History. Beacon Press, 2015.
Curtis, Bryan. “How Dan Patrick and Keith Olbermann’s ‘SportsCenter’ Changed TV Forever.” The Ringer, 4 Sept. 2019, www.theringer.com/2019/9/4/20848656/sportscenter-dan-patrick-keith-olbermann-espn-40-anniversary.
Wilder, Charlotte. “Stephen a. Smith Rips Kevin Durant Ditching Oklahoma City.” For the Win, 4 July 2016, https://ftw.usatoday.com/2016/07/stephen-a-smith-rips-kevin-durant-golden-state
Dodd, Rustin, et al. “ESPN’s ‘First Take’: Skip and Stephen a. Embraced Debate, Played the Hits and Changed TV.” The Athletic, 31 Aug. 2023, theathletic.com/4681066/2023/07/12/first-take-espn-stephen-a-smith-skip-bayless.
