Does sports media know how to talk about sports? Does sports media know how to talk about sports?
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The First Take segment was such a parody, it could’ve been a skit on SNL.

The day after Alex Ovechkin broke the NHL’s all-time scoring record, P.K. Subban was in the studio. A quintessentially hateable Montreal Canadien, the NHL vet has taken his agitator act to TV, where he routinely lambasts the supposedly “me first” guys in the NBA.

But given ESPN’s record of ignoring the NHL, Subban is probably the best hockey fans could hope for. He was on the network’s signature studio show, ready to debate LeBron James.

What?!

“LeBron’s great, but he ain’t Kobe, he ain’t Jordan for me,” Subban blustered at one point, defending his all-time NBA player rankings.

Shannon Sharpe, who played 14 Hall of Fame seasons in the NFL, pushed back vociferously.

The argument–loud, inaudible, between two decorated ex-athletes–encapsulates the current sports media scene to a tee. Recently, AA’s Matt Yoder pointed out that sports media has no idea how to talk about the NBA. As the Ovechkin segment shows, the sports media also has no idea how to talk about the NHL, either.

Or MLB. Or tennis. Or golf. or anything besides the NFL and big-time college football. The true irony is that the sports media really has no idea how to talk about sports.

How did we get here?

The landscape has always been tilted… but it’s way worse now

To be clear, we’re talking about the talking heads in “national sports media”– i.e., a dying breed. They’re part of a collapsing ecosystem that seldom serves anyone besides betting sponsors and leagues.

21st-century ESPN has always favored certain topics. Several studies conducted over the Tebow years confirmed everyone’s suspicions: the Worldwide Leader in sports nearly dedicated its entire channel to the lousy quarterback. The numbers showed that viewership typically went up whenever they talked about Tebow.

So that’s what they did. Again and again.

When it wasn’t Tebow, it was a smattering of other big-ticket items: the Cowboys, LeBron, Durant, Peyton Manning, and bad New York teams. (AA conducted a project last April that showed the sports media is still obsessed with the Cowboys, perhaps more than ever.)

But like every dopamine-heavy trend in life, the trend accelerated during COVID-19. Over the last decade, ESPN has lost an avalanche of talent: Bill Simmons, Jemele Hill, Dan Le Batard, Bomani Jones, Pablo Torre, Ryen Russillo, and Michael Smith. The list is continuous, as chronicled by Bryan Curtis.

In 2023, ESPN also canceled Outside the Lines, just as HBO canceled Real Sports.

Almost all of those people and shows listed were about journalism. They dug deeper, along with a now-whittled-down ESPN investigative unit (somewhat buoyed by the hire of Dan Wetzel), defunct Sports Illustrated, and many other now-hobbled operations.

As we sit here today, there are fewer offerings at ESPN, FS1, or any outlet that doesn’t feature wrestling characters like Pat McAfee and Stephen A. Smith or their approximations. ESPN, a network that famously never wanted any of its personalities to become bigger than the brand, now pays SAS and McAfee a reported nearly $40 million annually.

They have the formula, and it’s based around feuds over the Cowboys and LeBron. Brian Windhorst, a man whose career will forever be linked with LeBron’s, articulated the point well this past fall.

The long-time insider accurately pointed out that his employer, and the industry as a whole, doesn’t value storytelling. “Everything is too short right now. People are too focused on tweets, too focused on guys getting crossed-over, guys getting dunked on, guys getting embarrassed, social media posts. Not as much on storytelling, learning about players and learning their backgrounds, what I call chronicling the season,” he said on Giannis’ brother’s YouTube show (another sign of the times).

Coincidentally, Windhorst became a fleeting main character in LeBron’s incredible interview with McAfee, in which the best player ever (see what we did there?) ripped SAS in an hour-long smack fest.

The segment, while jaw-dropping, was otherwise predictable. SAS and LeBron swiped at each other for weeks, including courtside at a Lakers game. LeBron verbally accosted SAS, who fanned the flames with an uninterrupted 15-minute monologue on First Take.

You see, SAS no longer rant and rave about the Lakers or Knicks. He rants and raves about… himself!

In a fractured world, the talent is the show

The NBA’s ratings crisis was the most overblown story of the year. After all of the hysteria, we found out the NBA’s national TV ratings are in line with last season. But sports viewership is dwindling outside of the NFL and major college football. The leagues are more regional. This is not a secret.

Furthermore, games are becoming increasingly inaccessible. Fubo doesn’t carry WBD networks, essentially giving YouTube TV a monopoly on sports fans for $82.99 per month.

That frustration boils down to every market in the country. Regional sports networks have lost 97% of their value in just seven years, getting bumped to higher cable tiers or being kept off entirely. Take the Red Sox as a case study. The iconic franchise with a diehard following is now hard to find and pricey to watch.

Early this year, Xfinity in Boston bumped the team’s network, NESN, to a higher tier. The move cost New England sports fans with Xfinity, the dominant operator in the region, an extra $20 per month on top of already costly cable bills.

For those who cut the cord, NESN is available on Fubo, but not YouTube TV. That’s a problem for Boston sports fans, considering the NBA champion Celtics are contending for another title. That means they will play deep in the playoffs, and the Conference Finals are only available on… TNT!

TNT is not on Fubo. Or Hulu. But it is on YouTube.

The arrangement is a Kafkaesque nightmare.

Now, for the crowd that has YouTube and still wants to see the Red Sox and Bruins—or anybody who lives outside the market—there is the NESN 360 app. But it costs $30 per month and isn’t available as an app on LG TV. You need Roku, Apple TV, or another service.

The process is onerous, expensive, and a microcosm of nearly every city in the country.

But do you know who is accessible on YouTube, cable, and every social media platform? Pat McAfee, along with crazy highlights, explosive clips, and quotes from the stars themselves.

It seems appropriate to mention that McAfee held an arena show in Pittsburgh Wednesday night with well over 10,000 in attendance.

There are no storylines if nobody is looking

When Brian Windhorst talked to Thanasis Antetokounmpo, he lamented the lost art of storytelling. Players are more visible than ever, yet most teams’ day-to-day happenings are cloaked in growing anonymity.

The Thunder are the perfect example. They are one of the best teams in NBA history, and they rarely receive their flowers, outside of a lone Mike Greenberg soliloquy on Get Up! and highlight segments on SportsCenter maintains a bit better level of meritocracy of topics than other ESPN shows.

Fittingly, Thunder players nailed the problem recently when addressing their lack of coverage on The Young Man and The Three podcast. Alex Caruso pointed out it’s “become cool not to watch basketball.”

Confounding the issue, Charles Barkley and Shaquille O’Neal constantly put down the current product on Inside the NBA, the league’s marquee studio show.

Regarding name recognition, the contest between Shaq, Barkley, and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander isn’t close. The guys in the studio have brands far more prominent than the players they’re covering. The in-season drama between LeBron and Stephen A. almost certainly received more ink than the Thunder this year.

Speaking of ink, I will spare you the typical sob story about newspaper closures. Newspaper jobs have declined 80% over the last 35 years. It’s been a long, painful, and slow tumble.

Yes, SI officially became a dead brand in 2024. But it was a largely irrelevant click farm for years before that.

The newer phenomenon is, there are almost no outlets to fill the gaps. Even The Athletic has undergone layoffs over the last couple of years, turning to more instant reaction and breaking news.

Let’s again use Boston as an example to focus on a specific market. The Globe has been shrinking for decades, and the Herald is barely stringing along. However, for roughly 10 years, RSNs bankrolled robust coverage of all the teams. NBC Sports Boston, in particular, blew up its digital operation, investing heavily in big local names and local programming.

But over the years, they’ve cut their veteran Celtics, Bruins, Red Sox reporters, local anchors, and shows.

NESN, meanwhile, recently laid off all of its editorial staff and offers almost no original programming outside of game broadcasts and pre- and post-game shows. The two sports stations, “The Sports Hub” and WEEI, used to feature fully staffed websites that are now shells of themselves.

The platforms for people who actually cover games are shrinking, especially in Bristol. With Around the Horn set to air its final episode next month, the last vestige of the mid-aughts is PTI, hosted by a 66-year-old Michael Wilbon and a 76-year-old Tony Kornheiser.

There used to be a time when ESPN would bring new sportswriters into the fold and integrate them into their programming. Now, they do that with active athletes. This generation’s version of Bob Ryan isn’t walking onto the set. But you know who is?

Marcus Morris. And he has takes.

About Alex Reimer

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