Colin Sheridan: Sad changes at ESPN show fools and their money are easily parted
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REMEMBER the good old days, before America fully bared its soul as an unrelenting ghetto of greed, when it still evoked a sense of possibility and adventure with every visit? Those pre-streaming, early internet years, when the first thing you’d do when you’d land into a hotel on the east coast was hop on the bed, kick off your shoes and turn on ESPN. Watch SportsCenter for an uninterrupted hour as your better half speculated aloud about where'd be good for dinner.
Down a wormhole you’d go, transfixed by the day's top-10-plays, some updates on Allen Iverson's whereabouts, some humorous critiquing of Jonny Damon's beard. Man, those were the days. Scott Van Pelt, his voice as polished and smooth as his shiny head, authoritatively dancing from topic to topic, unfazed by the sheer quantity of news and variety of sports. Gliding from Duke at North Carolina to a discussion on collective bargaining in the NFL like Gretsky on the ice. Half the time, you wouldn’t have a clue what they were talking about.
Part of the fascination was pure novelty, the ubiquity of content. The breadth of sports. The sheer depth of athletic talent, of star power, of exotic names and faces and places; from Nomar Garciaparra swinging at the first pitch in Fenway, to Carmelo Anthony flattering to deceive at the Garden.
The bar was low, I guess. Back home, the most exciting part of your watching week was The Sunday Game or Match of the Day. Maybe some ill-fated League of Ireland midweek highlights programme. George Hook lecturing Tom McGurk on Ralph Keyes and the beauty of having two feet. It’s no wonder a chance encounter with ESPN was a holiday in and of itself. We were famished, and the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network was not just a byword for qualitative coverage, but for excellence.
SportsCenter was its beating heart, but as its talent pool grew to include Van Pelt and Bill Simmons and Zach Lowe, its output diversified and evolved. Simmon’s two brainchildren - long-form gallery Grantland and the 30 for 30 sports documentaries series were arguably the network's creative peak. There seemed to be enough money to go around, so even if Grantland was an undoubted artistic indulgence, it brought a new audience, and some balance to a TV station that rooted in the more traditional values of debate shows like Pardon The Interruption with veteran broadcasters Michael Wilbon and Tony Kornheiser.
All has changed, and changed utterly. Last week came the news that the network - acquired by the Disney Corporation way back in 1996 - had let go two of its biggest stars - basketball writer Zach Lowe and industry insider Adrian Wojnarowski. The lay-offs, the company said, were in line with a revised fiscal strategy. Their departures follow other high-profile departees Robert Griffin Junior III, Scott Van Pelt, Max Kellerman, and - the most high profile and acrimonious of them all - Simmons, who was fired in 2015.
Nowadays, ESPN resembles little more than a tabloid. The deep thinkers are thin on the ground, replaced or outlasted by shouty showmen and erstwhile conspiracy theorists. Pat McAfee, a former punter for the Indianapolis Colts whose trademark shtick is to broadcast in a string vest, giving throaty hot takes on the NFL that are about as insightful as something you’d hear from a suit on a high stool in PJ Clarkes at 9pm on a Friday night, was the last major signing ESPN made.
Last year, he penned a deal with the network that's reportedly worth $85 million over five years. If you ever want to feel really down on yourself, pop his name into YouTube and see how he makes his money. You’ll burn your degrees, certificates, and diplomas. You’ll likely set up an Onlyfans account and start selling pictures of your feet. McAfees sports journalism is not much more high-brow than that.
If you’ve never heard of Stephan A Smith, he’s like a parody of a baptist preacher in an Eddie Murphy movie. In 2019, Smith signed a five-year, $60m deal. It didn’t even put him in the top three earners at the company. In an interview last December, in typical bloviating fashion, Smith stated his case for a raise (because that's what the talent does in US sports media, theypublically haggle than the athletes they are paid to talk about): “I’m not just a talent. I’m a business,” Smith said. “I’ve got my own production company. I’ve got my own YouTube channel. I’ve got my own show. It’s not even just a podcast. It’s a show with a fully loaded television studio. That’s what I built for myself, that could go linear or digital. The list goes on and on.”
On and on it certainly does. Smith's argument for more money from a network that, on one hand is shedding talent due to fiscal prudishness, while on the other is lighting dollars on fire with McAfee and Smith himself, is indicative of a changed media. He shouts louder. He creates more content. He has his own fully loaded television studio. Who cares what he’s saying, only the decibel he’s saying it at.
Fools and their money are easily parted, and the once great network stands gingerly on the edge of the abyss, counting coins with one hand, burning notes with the other.
By the time you’re reading this, somebody will have won the Presidents Cup. That may perplex you, as you may not even know that the Presidents Cup is. No matter, there were golfers playing in the Presidents Cup who also seemed uncertain what it was. Which, remarkably, made it more fun.
What the Presidents Cup actually is/was/will be is a team golf event between the butt-kicking United States of America and the submissive International rest of the world team. Less a golf tournament, really, but a metaphor for the geo-political state of the world. So it appeared Friday night at any rate, as the Yanks raced into a lead that made the prospect of two more days play over the weekend about as appealing as a dinner with Patrick Cantlay.
But, whenever you have a sport that relies so heavily on courtesy and decorum (in other words, gimme putts), you have the possibility of some controversy, however contrived or performative. This year, we had South Korean Tom Kim to thank, disgusted, as he was, to have to make a three-foot putt to half a hole, his direct opponents Cantlay and Xander Schauffele refusing to concede.
So put-out was Kim (pardon the pun), he demonstratively returned to the hole, post putt, to measure the distance. It wasn’t just the putts that had Kim and his partner, Kim Si-woo, riled up, it was the language, too. "I could hear some players cursing at us. I don't think there was good sportsmanship there."
But it's all part of the fun. I understand it. As for the Americans, well, in keeping with the geo-political metaphor, they were utterly indifferent to their opponents' complaints, defeating them without so much as a backwards glance.
Beggars can’t be choosers.
Adam Idah’s early season tally of four goals in eight games for Celtic may not represent a red-hot streak, but at least points to a player developing and evolving in a team that wins. Something that cannot be said for many of his Irish team-mates.
Building on the solid foundations of last season in Glasgow, Idah seems to be in the right place with the right team under the right manager.
Playing ball and scoring goals in front of an adoring home crowd at Parkhead will hopefully do wonders for his confidence.
Add in Troy Parrott’s impressive start with AZ Alkmaar — currently second in the Eredivisie — and maybe there’s more reasons to be hopeful as an Irish football fan than last month’s internationals suggest.
Johnny Sexton's new book - Obsessed - promises to ignite a domestic rugby season that has, heretofore, been a little stale. Munster seem profligate, Ulter confused, Connacht unpredictable, and Lenister, rich.
Early extracts suggest beefs with All Black Rieko Ioane, which would be great if true, as it will at least liven up the press conferences ahead of the Kiwis visit to Dublin in late November, notwithstanding the retired Sexton's absence from the fixture. There has been far too much love and respect between Ireland and the All Blacks these last few years. For all his qualities as a rugby player, Sexton's contrarian personality may end up being the thing we miss the most.