Berman and Tom Jackson going through NFL games on Sunday night was great. I kind of miss that.
Espn layoffs gameday affected
- Thread starter CycloneRulzzz
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Anybody out there remember Van Earl Wright from the old CNN sports? He was a little nutty, but I could not tear myself away from the TV when he was doing sports highlights.
Berman still does NFL Primetime , it's just shown on ESPN+. regardless, it's still pure awesome. Unfortunately, Tom Jackson retired during the covid year and they replaced him with Booger McFarland.
I seriously don't understand all you guys who 'only' want highlights of your team, or the 1 cool play your team has that day.
What was awesome about Sports Center was that they would show awesome highlights of every game, then on top of that give you a top 10 plays across everywhere for the day. Twitter gives you single play highlights. I cruise Reddit all the time, and it's single play highlights that get upvoted. I want a condensed collection of high lights and summaries with context of what happened. That's what Sports Center used to do phenomenally!
I don't want to Google / Reddit / Twitter search for each teams highlights, then click on them individually, then hunt for the box score, then search for current league leaders in stats. I want it all packaged together like Sports Center used to do but nothing currently does that anymore.
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Because I don't give a **** about October hockey... or NBA preseason basketball... or an expose about a deaf shot-putter from Lithuania, whose perseverance and gumption should be a lesson to us all. I don't want to have to tune into an hour worth of that crap plus commerical breaks, to be able to see NFL highlights, if I don't have to. And thankfully, due to media like Twitter and YouTube, people don't have to, which is why highlights shows like Sportscenter are dying relics of a bygone era.
Even if you don't want to do the twitter/youtube thing, there are dedicated channels and websites for most of the major sports. I hit up NFL.com way more than ESPN to see NFL highlights as it's much easier to find what I want and it's often better about not making me sit through a 30 second commercial for a 10 second clip.
I will say I still appreciate a good highlights segment. I like the one that they do on the SNF pregame show, as while I follow a lot of the action earlier in the day, I don't catch everything.
I don’t think the medium was the whole problem so much as the product just started to suck. I still want a Sunday morning CFB highlight show or a CBB highlight show. It doesn’t have to be anything special but the stuff they do have still is really lacking. Sportscenter isn’t even a highlight show anymore.
Controversy drives eyeballs and clicks. Hawt Takes are what they want. And by adding McAfee, they are dangerously close to "Just asking questions" guy territory.
Frankly I'd be willing to suffer through a Cowboys SB win just to see Stephen A's head explode.
They still have Sam Ponder, right?
She just seems so fake. Wish they would have kept Wendi Nix or even put Laura Rutledge on NFL Live.
She just seems so fake. Wish they would have kept Wendi Nix or even put Laura Rutledge on NFL Live.
KidSilverhair
Well-Known Member
Agreed. With the dominance of the NFL, by Sunday on sports TV it’s like college football never happened. We talk a lot about those “west coast late Saturday night TV windows” in the realignment threads, but if you’re not actually staying up late to watch the games, good luck finding recaps/highlights easily available on Sunday. I’m old enough to remember Howard Cosell and “halftime highlights” during Monday Night Football in the pre-ESPN days … surely there’s still a market for something like that.
Yep. Used to have to turn to ESPN and watch the ticker to get score updates.
I usually record College Football Scoreboard on Saturday night and watch it Sunday morning. I think it airs Sunday morning on ESPN2 as well. That and Gameday/CFP Playoff Shows are the only ESPN shows I watch. I don't love Matt Barrie, but it's still one of the better highlight shows they have just due to the volume of games on a Saturday.
Hell you can go on Twitter to see the highlight 5 minutes (or sooner depending on how big of an audience is watching it) after it happened.
The days of 'tuning in' to Sportscenter for highlights are basically gone. It was well done at its peak, it was one of very few shows like it, and they had several talented people with amazing comedic timing as they called it.
ESPN now is good for 30/30s and carrying major sports and the list ends there.
I will say it's kind of funny how ESPN2 used to be the 'extreme/X-games' channel and now they show bags games.
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Interesting article on embrace debate
deadspin.com
Deadspin | Dan Le Batard was right — ‘Embrace Debate’ has destroyed sports television
Deadspin | Dan Le Batard was right — ‘Embrace Debate’ has destroyed sports television
deadspin.com
Bilas was so hard to watch on this year's NBA draft show. Just terrible analysis.
He's younger, boisterous, enjoys beer & vitamins, was a party guy, is surrounded by his bros, mostly speaks his mind, sticks it to the man (well, he used to) and played in the NFL.
In short, he's what a lot of the younger bro crowd wants (and/or still attempts) to be.
He's kind of like Joe Rogan in his appeal (I bet they have a lot of crossover demographics).
I listen to his show in podcast form on my drive home 2-3 nights a week. Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's mediocre, sometimes it's excellent (some of the NFL segments he had during the season were really good), and sometimes it's a flaming pile of excrement that I turn off immediately.
Like a lot of people, I can't think of the last time I watched something other than a live sporting event on ESPN. The summaries and highlights are out there from other sources more quickly and with less noise.
The way he signed off from his Headline News segments was awesome!
45 years ago, ABC had NFL films do highlights from Sunday games on Monday night football. We kids got to stay up to see it. Then Saturday morning, between Bugs Bunny/road runner show, the nfL films put a longer version for a 30-minute segment. We lived for those days.
