OT: Doc Rivers Calls Out ESPN in Interview
During the interview he says, "That network, to me, reports a story that they created, then they do reports on it for the next two days. On a story they created." On top of that, he called the report "stupid".
In this case the ESPN reporter is Chris Broussard, who reported that the Clippers and Knicks were discussing a trade involving Carmelo and Blake Griffin. Rivers goes on to call out ESPN on another bogus story.
Not really shocking, but it's great hearing a guy like him call them out on their BS stories.
Link:
January 6th, 2014 at 2:33 AM ^
January 6th, 2014 at 11:07 AM ^
Like Two princes kind of spin doctor?
January 6th, 2014 at 2:12 PM ^
Maybe, but that just means anything that he (Doc Rivers) says should be viewed with a critical eye, not that it should be rejected out of hand. Whatever his other flaws, I don't think he is wrong here (nor do I think he was wrong when he criticized Bill Simmons, even if Bill Simmons seemed right in some of his criticisms of Doc).
January 6th, 2014 at 2:35 AM ^
True, but I just like someone standing up to the evil empire that was pivotal in creating the SEC monster.
January 6th, 2014 at 11:48 AM ^
I have boycotted ESPN, as have others on this thread. It sucks as a sports fan, because they basically OWN the entire Bowl game schedule.
In my opinion, the Disney purchase of ABC/ESPN was the last straw. It's absolutely unwatchable due to the content and the "personalities."
I remain hopeful NBC Sports Network and/or FS1 will be able to break the monopoly, but I'm not holding out hope. ESPN is a juggernaut.
January 6th, 2014 at 1:22 PM ^
ESPN has always been horribly biased to favor American cash machine sports, and while I give it credit for more recently expanding its international soccer coverage, that all goes to shit given how over the last 20 years the channel has shifted into a 15 minute ticker on all things Yankees, Lakers and Cowboys. I mean seriously. All three subpar teams now, yet every arbitrary moment is spent on if Romo has a hangnail, who the Yankees are targetting in the offseason, and endless babble about how the Lakers will fix their problems.
I mean for example - the Kansas City Chiefs made the playoffs this year and Cowboys didn't but I would bet you Dallas received 15-20x more coverage from ESPN this year than the Chiefs. After every game, ESPN devotes 15 minutes to the Dallas post game presser... CHRIST!!! EFF DALLAS! I don't even hate the team, just hate the bias they receive!
ESPN's bias is my second most hated television experience behind the PapaJohn's CEO's narcissistic commercials where he puts his plastic surgically lifted face square front and center on my TV screen every commercial break, followed by him making 3 pointers or throwing deep balls with Peyton Manning. GOD I HATE THAT GUY!
January 6th, 2014 at 9:46 PM ^
January 6th, 2014 at 4:39 AM ^
January 6th, 2014 at 5:06 AM ^
January 6th, 2014 at 5:31 AM ^
You've really given this some serious thought. This is way deeper than I would have ever given thought to. I definitely agree with you, but I just prefer to call bullshit on them, then call it a day.
January 6th, 2014 at 10:54 AM ^
January 6th, 2014 at 6:07 AM ^
January 6th, 2014 at 6:32 AM ^
January 6th, 2014 at 7:08 AM ^
MAN U! MAN U! MAN U!
Can't you feel the excitement?!
Also, don't forget televised poker games. If this is surprising to anyone, look at the ads on ESPN commercials. Low-end ..... very low-end.
January 6th, 2014 at 9:51 AM ^
i2, etc. ... It's all just JDA now.
(Sorry, that was a little supply chain insider joke).
January 6th, 2014 at 7:09 AM ^
January 6th, 2014 at 7:26 AM ^
I don't always watch SportsCenter, but when I do, I'm more misled about sports than I am about who the most interesting man in the world is.
January 6th, 2014 at 8:55 AM ^
See, this is the problem. You have people like you saying "how dare they show me soccer," yet there are more soccer fans in the world than any other sports and its not even remotely close. Well, there's plenty of people that bitch about when they show college sports, the NHL, baseball, the NBA, etc. You can't have it both ways. Either you want them to show everything and not focus on just a couple of big topics, or you can want them to show everything (and then no one will watch, because who wants to sit through analysis and highlights of dozens of teams no one cares about).
And yeah...silly ESPN for trying to show highlights of the biggest sport in the world.
January 6th, 2014 at 10:31 AM ^
But ESPN is an American channel, not a worldwide one - its programming decisions don't have to be dictated by how other countries' audiences feel.
Personally, I don't mind soccer, although I don't particularly care for the English Premier League. It seems like there's currently a push to hype up the EPL over here and make us see it as a quasi-domestic league even though it's 5,000-8,000 miles away from us. I don't care for that. I'd rather have them hype up the MLS, which American viewers can actually see in person.
January 6th, 2014 at 10:40 AM ^
how chinese people feel in china. your sentence, "it seems like there's currently a push to hype up the EPL over there..." would read, "the NBA is literally throat f***** their product down a billion people in the hopes of a quick buck."
January 6th, 2014 at 11:16 AM ^
That sucks for the Chinese people, but doesn't mean that we need to do the same.
We have a pretty full schedule of sports in our domestic competitions as it is. Sportscenter can easily fill its programming with them.
January 6th, 2014 at 11:25 AM ^
January 6th, 2014 at 11:37 AM ^
ESPN basically pretends MLS doesn't esixt, yet acts like the EPL is somehing every American discusses on a daily basis. Yet I think I've known exactly 1 American in my entire life that gave a shit about the EPL. Sure, I've had European friends that loved it, but they don't count.
January 6th, 2014 at 1:27 PM ^
Why would they care about MLS? It isn't good soccer. If the EPL = NFL in terms of talent, then MLS is like DIII football, possibly NAIA football. And they don't need to hype the EPL, because right now it is the most talented league in the world. By getting consumers used to it, they increase the potential value of purchasing the broadcast rights down the road.
January 6th, 2014 at 11:55 AM ^
The reason the Prem is so pushed by ESPN, and followed much more closely by many here, is that the level of play is incredibly higher, to t the point tha tyou can't even compare the two. You can't expect serious soccer fans to care about, or ESPN to promote, a league that would be maybe the third or fourth level of the English pyramid, a league whose All-Star team struggles against the reserves of any top BPL team.
You can argue that ESPN (and/or NBC) overpromotes the Prem in relation to other high-quality leagues in countries that don't speak English (La Liga, the Bundesliga), but using the MLS as your example is just silly.
January 6th, 2014 at 2:18 PM ^
The MLS is the highest level of pro soccer here. Even if it's not as good as the European leagues, it's good enough to warrant the publicity.
It's not like fans only watch the absolute best leagues in the world in every sport. If they did, college sports wouldn't have the following they do.
January 6th, 2014 at 3:58 PM ^
And comparing all star team results against actual teams is just silly. Have you seen Miracle? Herb Brooks' entire point was that the Olympic hockey team could not be a US allstar team and beat the USSR. They had to learn to play together, as a team. I'll let you figure out how that ended.
Every Prem reserve side plays together every single day as opposed to the MLS all stars who most certainly do not. MLS may not be the highest quality soccer around but the majority of MLS teams would destroy the 3rd/4th division teams in England and would generally do fine as middling Championship teams. Your soccer arrogance and elitism is one of the impediments to MLS continuing to grow.
January 6th, 2014 at 10:06 AM ^
dominating our youth sports? Random guy = someone you don't care about in a sport you despise. Ask your son or grandson--he'll tell you who the random guy was.
January 6th, 2014 at 11:39 AM ^
Soccer domainates youth sports because moms like a game where kids can run around for an hour and get tired, plus it is easy to explain to young kids "Go run after the ball!". I've been hearing about a US soccer revolution due to youth soccer participation for decades now and it never materializes.
January 6th, 2014 at 12:18 PM ^
I love football! But you have your head in the sand if you don't see the trend. The numbers are against you. Youth football numbers are dropping precipitously---in part because of soccer and in part because of injury concerns with football. High school football teams in the area I live have about 60% of the number of players they had just 10 years ago. There are Division 2 & 3 teams here who carry 28-35 players. Eight man football is making a return in rural communities. Further, in many communities--the more affluent, the more common--the better younger athletes are playing soccer and never transition to football. I appreciate that this isn't as true in urban, many rural and Southern areas. But the trend is unquestionable--and soccer is here--even if "you" don't see or like it. I get that neither you nor your friends will learn to like soccer---people don't pick up new sports as they age--but talk to a few people under 35.
And the soccer is a Mom thing ( apparently married to immasculated men) says alot about you in a misogynistic-internet-tough guy kinda way.
January 6th, 2014 at 2:39 PM ^
the number of people under 25 who prefer soccer to every sport but football is immense and the number of soccer players in high schools is growing leaps and bounds while baseball and football both see declines. These things don't just happen, it's a long term demographic swing.
January 6th, 2014 at 11:48 AM ^
They're trying to shove soccer down our throats so much that the Premier Leage (EPL) - the world's popular sport's most popular league - is now on NBC, rather than ESPN. Sorry, kids, lots of folks dig soccer a little.
January 6th, 2014 at 7:37 AM ^
Breaking News: Stafford to become Lions player/coach for 2014.
About time!
January 6th, 2014 at 8:06 AM ^
Small sample size, so I don't have an opinion yet. They appeared to try to include humor in the reporting. Hoping the humor trends to witty rather than middle school jokes.
January 6th, 2014 at 10:20 AM ^
January 6th, 2014 at 8:50 AM ^
You have it backwards on the NFL. They aren't quite required by the contract to talk about it. What happens is because everything NFL related rates highly, they go to the NFL and say "hey, instead of X hours of NFL programming a week, we would like to now to X + Y hours a week and here's where we're going to use that footage." The NFL says OK, gives them a price tag for that new content, and then ESPN is off an running to do more NFL programming. And since they are shelling out $1B+ a year for that content, they do their best to get a return on that by pushing the NFL as much as they can.
And I don't know how you can really blame ESPN for going all in on the NFL. Its far and away the biggest driver of the ratings. Its the same reason you've seen so many other networks (TLC, MTV, Discovery, etc) change their format and run with shows that get ratings. At the end of the day, these networks are all businesses, and its in their best interest to get the highest ratings and the highest ad rates that go with them.
So don't blame the networks. Blame the idiots that like to watch Storage Wars, Duck Dynasty, Honey Boo Boo, and Tim Tebow coverage. The networks are just giving the people what they want.
January 6th, 2014 at 9:02 AM ^
And the thing that sucks just as much is that it looked like Fox Sports 1 would come around and give people what they actually wanted as an alternative to why many people now really like ESPN, and instead FS1 went the opposite direction and there still is no alternative.
January 6th, 2014 at 9:27 AM ^
I don't know why everyone thinks these networks aren't giving "the people what they want." Ratings show what people want. People want coverage on the NFL and the biggest lightning rod stars and teams. And like it or not, people like exactly what Sportscenter and all of these other shows are showing them because they continue to get good ratings. And its why FS1 is showing what they are showing.
Its really not that hard people. The media landscape has changed. No one wants to sit there and wait for coverage on their team to show up. If you want highlights and analysis, people go online to watch the highlight and read about their team because you can get immediate results on that. National networks are going to go for the biggest audience they can, and for smaller things, they're hoping you go to their website for coverage on that. That's a big part of the reason ESPN now has team sites for every NFL team, and 20 or so college teams. They can't devote time to every team on the main networks, but they can give you coverage online.
January 6th, 2014 at 9:50 AM ^
Are there people that want that sort of thing? Yes. Is that the majority of people? Yes, it's why Sports Center is what it is.
But is there also a large group of people that want an alternative? Yes. "...give people what they actually wanted as an alternative to why many people now [don't] really like ESPN". I'm not saying both should be the opposite of what they are, but having two similar styles of networks seems counter-productive. At best, you're just splitting the groups and neglecting what is obviously a large sector of people that want an alternative. For how much people complain about the current landscape of sports coverage, it seems pretty clear that an alternative is desired for a large group of people, instead it's more of the same.
January 6th, 2014 at 1:57 PM ^
The thing is, I don't think there's that large of a group of people clammoring for an alternative. A least an alternative that would be watchable. Despite people saying they'd want to watch some sort of alternate sports network where's there's analysis and highlights on a wide variety of teams, I don't think people would actually watch it. Media is far more fragmented today than it used to be, so you can't go with a scatter gun apporach to content. People just won't watch it and will go elsewhere to find something that interests them. The fact of the matter is that the vast majority of people don't care what teams outside of the circle of fandom are up to on a day-to-day basis.
I mean, look at all of the individual sports networks -- NFL, MLB, NBA, Golf, Big Ten, SEC, etc. Those all exist because there's a demand for more coverage on just those sports/leagues/confs. But the ratings for those networks are a tiny fraction of what ESPN pulls in. And yes, ESPN has a larger subscriber base, but its not THAT much bigger. For instance, they have slightly less than 100M subs, where a network like the NFL Network has around 70M. FS1 has around 85M I think. But other networks get a tiny fraction of the views ESPN gets.
So other content is out there, but people just don't want to watch it. And if you see that start to change, then you'll probably see ESPN change their philosophy as well.
January 6th, 2014 at 11:24 AM ^
And like it or not, people like exactly what Sportscenter and all of these other shows are showing them because they continue to get good ratings.This is not necessarily true. It may be the case that there are lots of people hungry for sports coverage of any kind, and for that reason they'll put up with ESPN. This seems to be true of a lot of people I know, who do watch SportsCenter while complaining about the Tebow/A-Rod/Kardashian/whatever soap opera coverage therein.
January 6th, 2014 at 9:06 AM ^
I've been seeing this same thing for a while in all media. Tebow-mania was the official clincher when I thought "Shit, even ESPN has succumbed to this crap". Is there any room in your rant to point out ESPN's use of twitter? I absolutely hate how twitter has become this source of legitimate information. I'm really not concerned with what Lebron has to say in 150 characters or less every night, nor do I think its a fair representation of the general publics opinion. I think it feeds into the same "E!" culture by rewarding the most rediculous opinions all in an effort for clicks. 15 years ago there were also nut jobs with these crazy thoughts, but thankfully they stayed inside their heads. Now, because its said on twitter today we somehow care or that opinion is legit?
January 6th, 2014 at 9:41 AM ^
double post, sorry, wasn't even on my phone : /
January 6th, 2014 at 9:37 AM ^
January 6th, 2014 at 9:48 AM ^
January 6th, 2014 at 10:12 AM ^
And on Sunday? It's like college football never existed.This always bugs me. It's OK to discuss the NFL 365 days a year, but college football must only be mentioned at certain prescribed times.
January 6th, 2014 at 11:13 AM ^
There are many many reasons to hate on ESPN. You do a great job summarizing the main points. Let me add another: hockey. ESPN loves to hate hockey, to shun it as if it is inferior. This is the same network used to cover hockey and show the damn games! Now it's ok to just openly mock it and show about 30 seconds of highlights before talking about Bron Bron and offseason baseball news again. The SC anchors baically make a game of proving how muhc they don't care about hockey highlights when they mispronounce names of players not named Crosby that they probably looked at for the first time that day. I would say the 100,000+ that went to the Winter Classic prove that hockey perhaps is not a dead sport. It may not be as popular as basketball or football, but so long as they play on ice it's never going to be. But it's just comical to me how they are shoving soccer down our throats and then telling us that soccer is now more popular than hockey.
No, ESPN, just because you don't own exclusive rights to NHL coverage does not mean that people don't care about the NHL.
January 6th, 2014 at 11:48 AM ^
It's comical that they have dozens upon dozens of so-called experts on the top three major sports, but for hockey they have only Barry Melrose. Even tennis has at least a dozen analysts, but hockey is a one-man show. Sad.
January 6th, 2014 at 12:05 PM ^
"But it's just comical to me how they are shoving soccer down our throats and then telling us that soccer is now more popular than hockey."
Sorry, man. I love hockey, but if hockey got ratings, it would be on television more often. It's a regional sport, at best. If Man U played Arsenal in the Big House - or any other stadium in the country - it would draw well. The world's best soccer - not a local minor league team or a college, but an EPL or US Mens National or hell, US Women's National, will draw in this country. Increasingly so when you consider that demographics are increasingly being driven by immigrants who view soccer as their favorite sport.
January 6th, 2014 at 11:50 AM ^
Classic.