ESPN/Headscratchers

• Why do they show an animation not unlike their World Cup intro every time they wrap up their coverage of it? That seems kind of counter-intuitive.
• Why the hell do they need an hour long special just to hear LeBron James say "next year, I'll by playing for Opposing Sports Team ? That can't take more than 15 seconds
  • Because ESPN is hell-bent on pimping him.
  • They want to show the kids how to drop 2/3rd's of your fanbase in only 60-minutes.
  • The same reason a game show requires an hour buildup for a two-second elimination announcement. It's hype. Also, ESPN giving inordinate attention to certain athletes is nothing new (a certain message board poster said that it was turning into People magazine)...Brett Favre, anyone?
  • Because James was willing to pay them big bucks for an hour of airtime.
  • Also because it was a Ratings Stunt. It worked, too, considering that it was the third most-watched program of the year on cable TV at the time it aired.
• Their baseball coverage is incredibly biased. According to ESPN, the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox are the only teams worthy of coverage. Their incessant sucking up to Boston's David Ortiz during 2010's Home Run Derby was shameful and blatant. God help you if you're a fan of, say, the Minnesota Twins. Or any National League team.
• At least they cover baseball. Their treatment of the NHL is just brutally awful.
  • ESPN screwed them over. When they pulled some duplicitous tactics to yank broadcast rights away from FOX, both ESPN and ABC proceeded to ignore the league, giving it absolutely no advertising time on ABC and the bare minimum on ESPN. This behavior accelerated when ESPN and ABC got the rights to broadcast NBA games (coincidentally, the NHL's direct competitor for the winter months), with both networks making it clear they were prioritizing basketball over hockey. Then right as the 2004-05 NHL lockout started, ESPN canceled their NHL recap show NHL2night and refused to revive the show when the League approached them for a new cable deal after the labor dispute ended. With this kind of network screwing over a 6-7 year period, you cannot possibly blame the NHL for jumping to a more caring TV partner in Versus.
  • Which is surprising as the UK version of ESPN shows many live NHL games a week, with lots of different teams, and is done well.