Monday, June 4, 2007

Hate, Hate, Hate

Two notable results stemming from me being home from school and without a full-time job:

1) I've made sure to catch up on my sleep-time which resulted in my dad giving me the sagely advice that I was, "missing out on a lot of life." Touching, really.

2) I've been reading a lot of blogs lately, mostly sports related, and I have observed an interesting if not slightly disturbing trend: it has become suddenly "en vogue" to hate on ESPN.

I have never been a big fan of blogs, it has always seemed like a flaky medium; most out there are written by people who have no idea what they are doing and have nothing interesting to say, including me. In fact, a lot of them make you feel like someone is forcing you to read their diary that is filled with awkward brooding and ill-advised opinions. The only reason these people are read is because they have found a free avenue to publish themselves and, again, this includes me. Once I saw that blogs had become somewhat "accepted" I decided to create one only because it was something to keep me busy and it was an outlet for writing everyday. I still cringe at the fact that I can call myself a blogger and trying to tell someone that I blog feels like trying to declare that I enjoy hanging out in the JCC shower room for long periods of time.

Now I'm not trying to give a history lesson on blogs, just what I've observed in my short time in the "blogosphere." (Yea, I felt creepy just typing that word- now would be Chris Hanson's cue to walk in the room.) Blogs, especially sports-related sites, have become the relative counterculture to the mainstream press. Newspapers and professional websites report on the facts and results of games and give their certified opinions on the relevant matters, while blogs tend to lean towards customarily comedic commentary (that's alliteration homes) that isn't normally or even able to be discussed in the national press. For example, Profootballtalk.com has a tally going on how long its been since the last player has been arrested and a certain amount of points is awarded to that player's team depending on if the crime was a felony or a misdemeanor. For a number of reasons this is a gimmick that a respected institution, like the New York Times, could never attempt. The simple explanation being that they see it as below them and generally disreputable.

Another function of blogs is that they serve as a forum for fans to air their complaints about anything having to do with sports. Again, national media habitually steers away from this type of gravely negative commentary because they don't like to burn bridges and lose their access. Bloggers don't usually have any access to begin with so they have no misgivings. One such site is Awful Announcing which deals with sports announcers and their general incompetence. Most other blogs' (good examples: Deadspin, Kissing Suzy Kolber) main objective is to present sports in an entertaining, humorous manner with the main through line being that they are uncensored, honest sites that don't shy away from sensitive material and don't pull any punches. It makes for very interesting reading and sometimes these unadulterated takes on the main stories are a refreshing change of pace.

What I'm getting at here is that in frequenting these sites I've seen a prevalence of criticism of ESPN and its writers. These sites have taken on everyone from their most popular online writer, Bill Simmons, to their on air talent, such as Chris Berman and Stuart Scott. Some of the criticism regards them being just unfunny, while others have accused them of "stealing" reports, or reporting on the break of a story as if it was their own or just flat-out degrading the network. Now I'm not saying this criticism is unwarranted or even incorrect. I agree with a good deal of the stuff written. Simmons can sound a bit like an egomaniac sometimes, Berman will pull a Dane Cook and just get downright annoying and too flamboyant and Stuart Scott does tend to venture in to Carlos Mencia territory and try to play up the race factor a bit too much, dawg. What I take issue with is that the criticism of ESPN has spilled into downright hate of the network. Not in some cases; a few sites do acknowledge their respect for the boys from Bristol and make sure to note that they are only offering objective assessments but there are those out there that have expressed genuine distaste for what they sarcastically refer to as the "Worldwide Leader," and this confuses me.

Growing up ESPN was like a sports-loving uncle that permanently lived in my basement. Back then I would be up early enough in the morning that I would occasionally see the sunrise and it wasn't because I had been up all night drinking or trying to catchup before a final. Rather, I had some sort of motivation (which doesn't exist anymore or has been beaten out of me) that caused me to pop out of bed at the break of dawn and run downstairs every weekend morning and deposit myself in front of the TV. While most kids watched Looney Toons or Animaniacs or Rugrats, I immediately tuned to Sportscenter. I would watch it over and over until I could either narrate the highlights myself, or some sort of fishing show came on and then I would finally switch over to cartoons. This was before the Internet; ESPN was my portal in to the sports world and it had an obsessive effect on me like inhabiting John Malkovich had on Cameron Diaz in "Being John Malkovich."

As I grew older ESPN always had a place reserved in my heart. Tom put up an ESPN Classic banner in our common room in our apartment at UConn and to me it was like hanging up a priceless work of art. In my view, it was comparable to putting up an original Picasso or the actual hand-painted portrait of Kramer from the Seinfeld episode. Sports coverage today is as diverse as ever, ESPN may still be the leader, but others are beginning to catch up. ESPN even had to create a sports magazine so they could compete with the one that is currently on HBO. So maybe they might have lost a step or gotten a tad boring sometimes but I just can't ever imagine harboring any hate towards the network. It baffles me that anyone could look at them as anything but a legendary institution in the same vein as Playboy and Jack Daniels. What they have done for sports deserves its own post in and of itself and is so evident that even me stating this seems rhetorical. But then again, I'm a blogger. Fuck.