Of course, being in college traditionally, on campus and such, means you are up at all sorts of stupid hours of the day and night, and watching Sportscenter became a daily routine for us as a group of friends. It certainly helped that Nebraska went through arguably the greatest period of college football in the entire modern era, winning 3 titles in the process.
belly isn't nearly as into sports as I am. She didn't mind my raving Husker love, but I was never going to expect her to enjoy sitting with me through an hour and a half of ESPN a day, all while playing Tecmo or hockey video games on another TV side by side. So over time, I've gotten away from watching Sportscenter, really to the point that I only see it maybe once a week, if that. We are more into watching sci-fi flicks/shows or comedies than sports, and it is more fun to do things with other people than by yourself, so of course that became more my thing to do.
One thing I do know, however, even with my lowered viewing time of ESPN, is that Steven A. Smith is one of the worst things that ever happened to the sports network. There are a lot of great sports broadcasters out there, a lot of really good local NBA ones I am sure too, but I really can't think of too many worse than Smith is. His endless rants bring to mind the idea of the sound of one's own voice soothing themselves, because I haven't really met anyone that enjoys his take on really, well, anything.
Therefore it was not a surprise to see an article on Sportscenter, and what is wrong with it these days, that centers in Steven A. Smith and the horrors involved with him. Here is the article in full:
Sports Media Watch - The End of Sportscenter
For whatever reason, ESPN let Smith back in the door in 2011. While his initial role was confined to the radio and ESPN.com, he quickly resumed his position as one of ESPN’s most prominent talkers. Now, he is an institution on the morning SportsCenter, where unnecessarily deferential anchors sit by and watch him devolve into the kind of self-parody that even “Saturday Night Live” cannot adequately capture.It seems that the biggest problem facing ESPN is probably centered around the entire idea of what Chris Berman is all about. Berman was the one who created quirky names centered around the last names of specific players, especially those in the NFL. They were quite witty and funny... back in the mid 1990's. Unfortunately after awhile many of the other anchors decided that they needed to find their own "schtick" and therefore ESPN started to become more and more about the sports anchors themselves than about the entire reason for ESPN in the first place: sports and video clips showing sports.
Now I can't really say that ESPN is as bad as EMPTY-V (oh, did I spell MTV wrong?). Both MTV and ESPN were wonderful in the early 1990's. Sure, MTV had Beavis and Butthead (such an underrated show haha) but for the most part they were still all about music and videos, and ESPN during that time was about sports and replays. I don't even know that I've even watched MTV in the last 5 years, trying to recall here, in fact the only show I can think of I can't even name, it was that pregnant teenager show, I can't even tell you if they have any actual music videos anymore.
I can only pray that ESPN doesn't get that bad. ESPN has certainly added in a lot of self-serving programming that centers more around their sports anchors and their (at times very idiotic) opinions, but you can still find out what happens in the world of sports by watching Sportscenter. They could easily go down the same road as MTV though, if they aren't careful. I don't ever expect ESPN (or MTV for that matter) to be as great as they were in the early 1990's, but I also have to realize it likely has a lot to do with my age at that time too. Your priorities change in life, not sure if Walking Dead is better than football highlights, but I do choose Walking Dead these days (or Game of Thrones, I'd say they are equally awesome).
