How ESPN can survive the Era of No Sports
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Without live sports over the past week, "ESPN has in many ways fallen back into its old habits of self-promotion, loud 'debate' (nailed by a 30 Rock satire with the show 'Sports Shouting') and fevered sycophancy toward the NFL, which is in the middle of its trading and free agent season," says Will Leitch. "Hard to blame the network too much for that: There isn’t a lot of sports to cover. With the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention urging restrictions on gatherings of 50 people or more for the next eight weeks, and Trump suggesting capping it at 10, it’s clear that ESPN has to figure out at least the next couple of months. But, hey, so do the rest of us." He adds: "The channel’s daytime programming is especially reliant on talk shows, not on live sports, and while there’s certainly less to discuss in a sports-free world (as this disconsolate sportswriter can tell you), there’s still plenty of hot air to spread around at the headquarters in Bristol, Conn. You try telling Stephen A. Smith there’s nothing in sports worth braying about....ESPN has spent much of the past decade making itself more and more powerful through various platforms. Much of this has been alarming, particularly with so many of the layoffs of terrific journalists at the network and at its websites. But whether the network realized it or not, its power and scope has put it in an excellent position to weather this sports-less storm."
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TOPICS: ESPN, Coronavirus, Sports
