Worst ESPN personality
 

An Interesting blog game here: http://www.bravesbeat.com/bravesjournal/bristol/

Vote for the worst in each pairing.

Mine:
Brantley - Idiot
Gray - Very annoying.
Kruk - dumb.
Scott- Booya suck

Stuart Scott hands down.
Chris Berman is a close second.

Brantley - dumb
Jim Gray - annoying and full of self importance
John Kruk - see Brantley
Stuart Scott - booyuck

Note: Steven Smith is still the worst. Stop yelling at me for god's sake, I'm just trying to watch your show.

Does Skip Bayless count?

Vitale doesn't count?!?!

I wish he would just die already.

/tk

I have trouble listening to Stuart Scott...It drives me nuts when I am trying to watch "Stumpt the Schwab", I just want to grab the guy by his neck!

stu scott...jeez that was easy.

I dislike many of the same people frequently mentioned (Stephen A. is tops on my list, too)... but I guess my intensity is a lot lower, since I have basically given up on ESPN as a meaningful part of my sports news any longer. I record PTI every day, and watch some of their televised poker events... and that's about it. I see SportsCenter from time to time when it's on where I am (bar, poker room, etc) but I make no effort to watch it on my own.

Turns out my life is just fine without it. Who knew?

This thread is as cool as the other side of the pillow.

Boo ya!

Same here. I TiVO PTI every day, but other than that I never watch ESPN. Ever. I am sure that will change a bit once football and hockey start, but even then I assume I will get my NFL fix from the NFL Channel (which I watch way too much of) and I will get my NHL fix from Hockey 2Night (assuming the show will even exist) and that will be that. I used to watch Sports Center all the time back in the day up until I left for Europe in March 2002. When I got back at the begining of 2005 it had changed so much. so very, very much. And all for the worst.

I think the website has it as a tourney style bracket. Vitale is the #1 seed in one of the other brackets.

Good to hear. He needs to die. Or else somehow lose his capability to talk. Man I hate him.

/tk

I agree completely, the whole yelling thing really turns me off--enough so that I won't watch any basketball analysis that he takes part in.

On another note, I've noticed lately that John Kruk is really annoying. It seems as though most of the things he says are just so he can disagree with Herald Reynolds over some asinine point. Plus, I just can't take him seriously now that he doesn't have that mullet anymore......

Steven Smith is the worst.

This may be the first and last time that sentence is ever uttered.

The worst "minute-gor-minute" (like pound-for-pound) for me goes:
1) Skip Bayless
2) Steven A. Smith
3) Stuart Scott.

But, if I had one guy to fire (out of a cannon into a wall), it'd be Stuart Scott simply because he is on ESPN FAR more than the other two.

My thinking exactly.

I would add Kruk as 4).

I have been watching less and less ESPN as well. I love NFL Countdown/Primetime. Some may find Berman annoying, but I enjoy listening to him and I really like TJ. I HATE it when Stu Scott is on there from time to time. He's annoying, but I would have to say Skip Bayless is number one for me. Can't stand him.

I really hate Tony Realy! Talk about No Talent! He's the CHEMICAL SOLDIER of ESPN.

This "he should to die" talk is a little drastic people.

I also find myself rarely watching ESPN sports news any more. My ESPN watching usually lasts until Scott Stuart comes on. I can take him for three or four minutes. He seems so full of himself.

I think when the channel first came out they had some innovative writing and a fresh style that brought sporting news to life. But the pendulum has swung too far in that direction now. The writing and commentary has gotten so loud that I find it drowns out the news rather than enhances it.

Where's Linda Cohn? Shes awful.

Seriously? I love Linda Cohn.

Me too.

I find it curious that so many people have so much bile for Vitale, and want nothing more than for him to stop talking, when he is one of the most highly paid speakers in this country.

I'm sure Vitale is a fabulous speaker. I actually have no doubt about that. He's terribly annoying though in his tv incarnation because the schtick is clearly played out.

I mean imagine hiring him and hearing his routine 20 times a year as a speaker. You'd tire of it.

I think he yells too much and is too much of a Duke/Notre Dame homer. BUT, with everyone else in the sports media constantly looking for and overreporting the negative story, I find his positive outlook pretty refreshing.

I agree with that and give him credit for creating his own brand.

The switch from David Aldridge to Stephen Smith to me epitomized the end of the golden era of ESPN. It was sliding long before that, but this switch was just such a crystal clear example of the downward slide.

I'm a bit surprised by all the hate for Stuart Scott. I can handle his schtick much moreso than many others on the channel (Smith, Vitale being prime examples) and besides, how else is a white-boy geek like me going to get exposed to all the urban slang that Scott throws in... ;)

I remember a time before ESPN...
 

...when you never found out the scores of games until the following day. You didn't see stats until the next day as well. You had only one game per week on TV.

I am amazed at how people tend to complain about something that provides so much for sports fans. Are all the critics in here not sports fans?

I understand that some of the TV sports personalities can be somewhat "over the top" at times. So "big deal"! Just turn the sound down or turn the channel. To wish them dead/complain, how silly is that? So many fans these days have gotten so critical, they criticize everything. Enjoy it for what it is, a sports information network. I for one am very glad for ESPN (though my wife may not agree).

I can agree that perhaps the sports networks (ESPN, Fox) do tend to over analyze things these days. But still I would rather have it this way than the way it was in the 60's and 70's.

The only thing I would change is having stuff on like poker (a sport?) or other similiar nonsports events. But too each his own.

I like Dickie V. and Stuart Scott and Linda Cohn. I remember when Linda worked for KIRO in Seattle before she left for ESPN. She was excellent from the start.

ESPN was great when it was new, and while it rose to prominence. And then like MTV (and most things, frankly), once it became a brand in and of itself and bigger than what it was covering, it lost its way. The ESPYs is a perfect example. Award shows are shit to begin with, but naming the award after your network? Fuck your self-important ass. ESPN had issues well before Disney took over and turned it into an entertainment network. But that just killed whatever life was left in the original concept of ESPN. The "Who Let the Dogs Out" live performance on Sportscenter was THE end, as far as I'm concerned.

And again, just like MTV, the branch channels are much better. ESPNews gives you what you need with a minimum of showmanship.

Yep. And the Classic channel is almost always good for something interesting when channel-surfing. I love it when they do a series of replays of old fights by a particular fighter so you can see their progression.

Dola (and off-topic) -

I can't believe, even knowing how fucked-up the business side of boxing is, that there isn't a better selection of classic boxing matches available on DVD. Outside of a collection of Ali's fights against Liston in '64, Foreman in '74 and Frazier in '75 I can't find any good collection of classic fights on DVD. Where are other classics like the Leonard-Hearns, Leonard-Duran and Leonard-Hagler fights? Where are collections of older fighters like Rocky Marciano, Joe Louis, Sugar Ray Robinson? Where is the collection of Mike Tyson when he was destroying the heavyweight division?

Exactly!!!!! I'd pay for a Tyson career DVD. I'd also pay for the Gatti-Ward trilogy. Are they asleep? There's even more money to be made here.