Sportscenter Sucks

[Villain]

http://deadspin.com/5914304/bristol...mming-last-week-was-devoted-to-the-miami-heat

TIME DEVOTED TO INDIVIDUAL SPORTS
NBA: 171 minutes (50.9%) (last week: 27.7%)
MLB: 72 (21.4%) (last week: 32.1%)
SportsCenter staples (things like the "Top 10," "Encore," "What 2 Watch 4," etc.): 51 (15.2%) (last week: 16%)
NHL: 16.5 (4.9%) (last week: 11%)
Other sports: 10.5 (3.1%) (last week: 1.2%)
NFL: 9 (2.7%) (last week: 4%)
Golf: 2.75 (0.8%) (last week: 4%)
NASCAR: 2.75 (0.8%) (last week: 1.7%)
College football: 0.75 (.2%) (last week: 2.6%)
College basketball: 0 minutes (0%) (last week: 0.2%)

MOST-COVERED TEAMS BY SPORT
Miami Heat (NBA): 78.25 minutes (23.3%)
New York Rangers (NHL): 11.5 (3.4%)
Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (MLB): 7.75 (2.3%)
New York Jets (NFL): 2.5 (0.7%)
West Virginia Mountaineers (college football) 0.75 (0.2%)

MOST-MENTIONED SPORTS FIGURES
Rather than break down the amount of time a specific athlete or figure was covered, we counted how frequently names were mentioned in the transcripts from the week. The 15 most-mentioned sports people for May 19-May 25:

LeBron James: 135
Dwyane Wade: 112
Kobe Bryant: 70
Russell Westbrook: 38
Kevin Durant: 33
Justin Verlander: 26
Bryce Harper: 24
Rajon Rondo: 22
Danny Granger: 22
Roy Hibbert: 19
Larry Bird: 19
Chris Bosh: 19
Lance Stephenson: 18
Henrik Lundqvist: 14
Andrew Bynum: 13

CUMULATIVE STATISTICS: JAN. 7-MAY 25
Total time: 8442.5 minutes
Time (minus commercials): 6349.5

NBA: 1,719.75 minutes (25.7%)
NFL: 1,093.5 (16.5%)
College basketball: 1035 (15.5%)
SportsCenter staples: 987.5 (14.8%)
MLB: 838.5 (12.5%)
Other: 501.25 (7.5%)
NHL: 362.5 (5.4%)
College football: 138.75 (2.1%)

Notes

Welcome to HeatCenter: If you tuned in to SportsCenter at all last week, there was a very good chance you saw Miami Heat highlights, or ESPN personalities talking over Miami Heat highlights, or press conferences involving Miami Heat players. Nearly a fourth of all programming was devoted to the Heat. Let's put it this way: ESPN spent more time airing Miami Heat press conferences (13 minutes) than it did talking about the NFL. This for a team that's going to get smoked in the finals by the Spurs (who by the way, got four minutes of coverage this week). Oh, and LeBron got more mentions on SportsCenter than all the members of the Pacers combined.

Stephen A. Smith's takeover of SportsCenter continues: Smith got a noticeable bump in SportsCenterairtime (9.75 minutes), thanks to the Heat and Lakers dominating the ESPN agenda. Away from the awful "debate"-centric morning programming, Smith is actually a halfway decent analyst who seems to have close connections with players on many teams.

The Champions League final was ignored: There was time enough for a three-and-a-half-minute montage of the crazy sports weekend in Los Angeles, two minutes of college lacrosse, and more than a minute of drag racing. Chelsea's thrilling comeback and shootout win over Bayern didn't garner a single mention. Should we mention here that the final was televised stateside on Fox?

 

[Senser81]

I think all the games played in the Champions League combined got the same amount of Sportscenter coverage as Andy Petitte's "comeback" loss.

 

[Villain]

No mentions of cycling (biggest race in the US happened last week, it ended right outside of the Sportscenter LA Live Studio), tunnel vision towards hockey... It's crazy. You'd think that the Heat were the only ones in the playoffs. Last week I remember the Dodgers/DBacks having a crazy game and I was waiting for them to talk about it on the morning edition of Sportscenter and it was all Heat. So I changed to MLBN, watched the Dodgers highlights, along with a bunch of other games I never would've seen highlights for, and then maybe 15 minutes later I went back to ESPN and they were STILL talking about hard fouls and LeBron James.

This has to be a contributing factor as to why American people mostly care about NBA, MLB, and the NFL. SC doesn't report on them and you have to go searching for the information and the games. I think the Olympics and the World Cup prove that Americans have the capacity to be rabid fans of other sports as long as they are given a team to root for and an interesting storyline to follow.

 

[Houston]

Not that I watch or care to defend it, but the NBA is very close to the finals...

 

[Villain]

Not that I watch or care to defend it, but the NBA is very close to the finals...

Hockey is in the finals, dumbass. The series clinching games happened last week - ESPN would rather talk "NBA toughness" and technical fouls. Last week there were 8 teams left in NBA playoffs...

 

[MrBill]

25.7% of their time devoted to the NBA and not a single Spurs player in the top mentions list :yao:

 

[Senser81]

25.7% of their time devoted to the NBA and not a single Spurs player in the top mentions list :yao:

Odd. I thought I heard Avery Johnson's name a few times this past week.

 

[spiker]

Hockey is in the finals, dumbass. The series clinching games happened last week - ESPN would rather talk "NBA toughness" and technical fouls. Last week there were 8 teams left in NBA playoffs...

I would thank you 100x if I could.

I'm not a big hockey fan but it's easy to see why ESPN sweeps it under the rug. Maybe it's because they don't have the television rights to the NHL and they do have the television rights to the NBA? :yep:

If I miss a local score from the night before, I watch Comcast Chicago in the morning. As a bonus, they'll even show the highlights from the NBA and NHL playoffs too without all of the fucktard worthless analysis.

 

[spiker]

Also wanted to mention that Tebow was NOT in the "top players mentioned" list. Shocking, I know.

 

[Lanteri]

Hockey is in the finals, dumbass. The series clinching games happened last week - ESPN would rather talk "NBA toughness" and technical fouls. Last week there were 8 teams left in NBA playoffs...

Makes me wonder what NHL players think if they watch SC and listen to them talk about NBA players having toughness. Put some of them flopping pansies on skates and see how tough they are then. :troll:

 

[EmpireWF]

I could have told you that without any fancy statistics.

I use to watch SC often a decade ago, but now there's no reason to. What they do is available in any number of other spots on TV or the internet.

 

[Leftwich]

I watch SC for Scott Van Pelt and too get updated with highlights. Other than that, i use the internet.

 

[RosettaStoned]

I got groaned a ton one time for saying ESPN was garbage.

 

[Leftwich]

I got groaned a ton one time for saying ESPN was garbage.

The one thing i truly hate about ESPN is the blackouts. If the Nationals are playing on MASN1 and the orioles have a sunday night game on ESPN, they will black that out then black out the game on MASN2. So i'm stuck without the orioles but if the Nats play on ESPN you can watch it on both channels.

ESPN and MASN have conspired to fuck me over.

 

[spiker]

The one thing i truly hate about ESPN is the blackouts. If the Nationals are playing on MASN1 and the orioles have a sunday night game on ESPN, they will black that out then black out the game on MASN2. So i'm stuck without the orioles but if the Nats play on ESPN you can watch it on both channels.

ESPN and MASN have conspired to fuck me over.

That's MLB's fault. Not ESPN.

 

[Senser81]

I've read that ESPN has a large amount of different people who put together the game highlight "clips" for each Sportscenter, and I think this type of "scatter-shot" approach hurts Sportscenter just as much as the disproportionate amount of time the show spends on certain issues/sports.

Watching Sportscenter now is a truly brainless activity. Only half the time is spent discussing the actual games, and even less than that is spent showing you actual game highlights. And I've never understood what ESPN is trying to accomplish with their game highlight packages. Are they trying to show the best plays? Nope. Are they trying to give you a short-hand account of the game? Nope. Are they trying to give you a feeling of the intensity of the game? Nope. They basically just give you a few clips of a big-name player or a big-name team, regardless of how they did and, more importantly, regardless of if its even worth seeing.

After you watch a game highlight, you have no idea how the game actually played out. In the 2nd inning Jeter strikes out, in the 5th inning Jeter hits a homer, in the 6th inning Jeter makes a diving stop and gets the runner out, and then in the 9th the new Yankee closer strikes out the Blue Jay batter and the Yankees win 9-8. HUH? Who were the pitchers? How did Toronto score 8 runs? Why didn't we see Toronto's in-the-park HR, or the terrible umpiring call in the 9th inning?

 

[Atlas]

MOST-COVERED TEAMS BY SPORT
Miami Heat (NBA): 78.25 minutes (23.3%)
New York Rangers (NHL): 11.5 (3.4%)
Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (MLB): 7.75 (2.3%)
New York Jets (NFL): 2.5 (0.7%)
West Virginia Mountaineers (college football) 0.75 (0.2%)

sounds great to me... :dd:

 

[Houston]

Hockey is in the finals, dumbass. The series clinching games happened last week - ESPN would rather talk "NBA toughness" and technical fouls. Last week there were 8 teams left in NBA playoffs...

And I'm guessing you'd rather watch and complain about ESPN, instead of simply changing the channel to NHL Network? If you knew you had MLB Network then why were you sitting around waiting for Sportscenter to play highlights? lol at me being the dumbass when you're the one still watching the show as if it has a monopoly on sports coverage.

 

[riley420]

The Rangers get beat by their biggest rival and there is NOTHING on SC about it.

Thank you, Comcast/Xfinity, for giving me the NHL channel so I never have to watch this crap. Oh, and Stephen A. Smith is keeping me away. There's just something about an extremely argumentative negro that makes my blood boil.

 

Not racist. Some of my best friends are negroes. You just have to keep them in line.

:yu:

 

[Leftwich]

I've read that ESPN has a large amount of different people who put together the game highlight "clips" for each Sportscenter, and I think this type of "scatter-shot" approach hurts Sportscenter just as much as the disproportionate amount of time the show spends on certain issues/sports.

Watching Sportscenter now is a truly brainless activity. Only half the time is spent discussing the actual games, and even less than that is spent showing you actual game highlights. And I've never understood what ESPN is trying to accomplish with their game highlight packages. Are they trying to show the best plays? Nope. Are they trying to give you a short-hand account of the game? Nope. Are they trying to give you a feeling of the intensity of the game? Nope. They basically just give you a few clips of a big-name player or a big-name team, regardless of how they did and, more importantly, regardless of if its even worth seeing.

After you watch a game highlight, you have no idea how the game actually played out. In the 2nd inning Jeter strikes out, in the 5th inning Jeter hits a homer, in the 6th inning Jeter makes a diving stop and gets the runner out, and then in the 9th the new Yankee closer strikes out the Blue Jay batter and the Yankees win 9-8. HUH? Who were the pitchers? How did Toronto score 8 runs? Why didn't we see Toronto's in-the-park HR, or the terrible umpiring call in the 9th inning?

Nothing irritates me more than this. Adam Jones hit 2 homeruns the other night and that's all they showed from the Orioles Jays game. If you didn't look at the stat line at the bottom, you wouldn't know who the pitchers were.

sounds great to me... :dd:

Thats because Bill Stewarts dumbass died. I'm sure SC's coverage of WVU football will go back to a healthy 0%