In 2009, ESPN president John Skipper told Sport Science host John Brenkus that short-form content was coming.
It was wildly prescient, more accurate than Skipper could have known. And yet, once Skipper left the company, so too did the show that fit his prediction better than any.
The last Sport Science segment aired on SportsCenter in 2017, looking at the freakish speed of All-Pro wide receiver Tyreek Hill. It was vintage Sport Science: it went deeper into the unbelievable physics that are at play when our favorite athletes break our brains (it also, unsurprisingly, has more than 8 million views).
It was also incredible content. Yet, for some reason, ESPN ended the show shortly after.
Brenkus rebooted a version of Sport Science on his own Brinx.TV platform last year, but growing something outside the Worldwide Leader’s huge umbrella is hard. There is still a hole where Sport Science used to be in the sports content world.
ESPN occasionally busts out the branding for a close-up of an athlete’s physical gifts. These might scratch the nostalgic itch for that Sport Science branding, but they’re a far cry from the actual show.
In its heyday, Brenkus led experiments with athletes to test things like reaction time and precision. That’s how awesome moments like Lonzo Ball throwing a basketball through a car were created.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObbAKoYm6so&pp=ygUcc3BvcnQgc2NpZW5jZSBsb256byBiYWxsIGNhcg%3D%3D
Everyone misses Sport Science. But this is no eulogy.
As far as anyone can tell, ESPN has owned the rights to the show, which originally aired on Fox Sports, since 2011. They can bring it back at any time, and they should.
In an interview with Awful Announcing in 2023, Brenkus called Sport Science the “very first transportable property with short-form programming.” Bingo! Skipper saw the future in 2009, but it’s not too late for the network to follow its former leader’s instincts and make old new.
Think of all the places ESPN tried to develop short-form content over the years. The Snapchat edition of SportsCenter was hosted by Jason Fitz, the live digital show debatable featuring Pablo Torre and Domonique Foxworth, and ESPN+ experiments like Always Late with Katie Nolan and Matthew Berry’s The Fantasy Show. That’s not to mention The Pat McAfee Show, which helped ESPN bolster its presence on TikTok, where it loves to brag about being the platform’s biggest sports brand.
Very few of those trials amounted to anything. ESPN knows it needs to be a bigger player on the internet, but there’s a reason it licensed PMS. The network struggles to stick with and invest in digital content. Maybe that’s why it sunset Sport Science in the first place.
Rather than admit defeat, ESPN should take advantage of a valuable property. The content that works on YouTube or, Twitch or TikTok may seem alien to the people in Bristol trying to reach younger sports fans, but it isn’t. Sport Science could kill online in the right hands.
MrBeast just scored a massive deal with Amazon Prime Video for Beast Games, a competition show that shares more than a little with cable classics like The Amazing Race or Survivor. Fans of Dude Perfect may not realize it, but they are enjoying trick shots and golf collabs for the same reason other people loved Mythbusters and Fear Factor. When streamers like Kai Cenat and iShowSpeed bring Kyrie Irving or Kevin Durant into their content to try trick shots or play 1-on-1, the same kids who sports media suits believe don’t like sports are tuned in, rapt at athletic feats from star athletes.
These are the biggest creators. Not everyone has the budget or creativity to create this type of content, but ESPN does.
Who wouldn’t want to see Victor Wembanyama drive a car from the back seat or Armand Duplantis vault over a two-story house? I have no idea if these experiments are possible, but that’s beside the point. If you have fun imagining such things, you probably are the target audience here.
There’s no guarantee a revamped Sport Science works. First off, it pays to have a host like Brenkus who genuinely geeks out. And in order for the show to be introduced to a new generation who shares no history with it, ESPN would need a genuine commitment. It’s easy to get distracted with live sports rights and major properties, but people pay for what they love. What they feel connected to. Audiencesshowg they still have an appetite for competition, science, and athletic greatness. The worldwide leader should have the market cornered on that stuff, but in reality, they lost that foothold long ago.
The return of Sport Science is the type of swing that could bring in new sports fans and delight the old ones.
