Frank Deford: High-And-Mighty ESPN Should Take It Down A Notch

[lint]

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...ryId=111535194

Even if you do not like NPR, you got to like Frank, he tells it like it is and I enjoy listening to him every Wednesday before I get into work.

Very good listen and read.

[JohnDoe8865]

Great post and a pretty damn accurate take on ESPN from Deford.

[SPTO]

Frank DeFord is one of the great treasures of sports journalism. I love watching, listening and reading anything he says.

[J0nnD0ugh]

Gotta agree. This is what I've been saying along time. ESPN has lost journalistic integrity. But virtually all news programs have. I've gotten to the point where I don't trust any reports on TV anymore.

[metallicatz]

E!SPiN is a garbage network that is about on par with TMZ. It reminds of MTV in the 80's compared to what MTV is now.

[MattieShoes]

Quote: Originally Posted by metallicatz

E!SPiN is a garbage network that is about on par with TMZ. It reminds of MTV in the 80's compared to what MTV is now.

Better? I agree, ESPN in the 80s was also better than ESPN is now.

[J.R. Locke]

ESPN is the big entity that controls sports. There is a lot of truth to the fact that ESPN owns the sports it is "reporting" on.

It would have been nice if another competitor could have made the transistion from the print to digital age.

[SPTO]

Quote: Originally Posted by MattieShoes

Better? I agree, ESPN in the 80s was also better than ESPN is now.

Actually I think ESPN was best from about 1990-1996. Since then it's been a long slide to sensationalism.

Quote: Originally Posted by J.R. Locke

ESPN is the big entity that controls sports. There is a lot of truth to the fact that ESPN owns the sports it is "reporting" on. It would have been nice if another competitor could have made the transistion from the print to digital age.

It's a shame that FSN failed for the most part. The idea of a regionalized sports network is a good one. The problem was they didn't have an anchor so to speak. Rogers Sportsnet is a regionalized network here in Canada but it works because TPTB took the approach that the Ontario region would be the anchor for everything that network does. Of course it helps that the major hub of media is in Toronto whereas you can logically put an anchor for FSN in a number of cities.

The other thing is, I don't think FSN ever had national properties, which IMO doomed the network from being a serious competitor to ESPN. All the national sports contracts automatically went to FOX rather then putting some of these entities on FSN. Another problem is that they had too many regions. If it was just FSN NY, FSN NE, FSN SOUTH, FSN SOUTWEST and FSN WEST then it would've been a lot easier to manage and thus you could logically put national coverage on all the networks without having TOO much overlap.

At least that's my opinion.