ESPN: Is it All Really News, or is it Just Another Game?

A few weeks ago, a reporter on ESPN named Skip Bayless, whom I'm sure many of you have heard of and most of you can't stand, made a comment about Russell Westbrook who is the point guard of the Oklahoma City Thunder.   He said that he was too shot happy and needed to be more of a team player.  Now when I first heard about this, I took it with a grain of salt because, well, its Skip Bayless.  The man showboats and sensationalizes everything. He'll take a stance on anything or any one just to have an opinion.  For those of you who don't know, Russell Westbrook is the second best player on his team in the NBA. His next comment immediately following that remark gave me a quizzical look.  He compared himself to the great "Pistol" Pete when he was in high school.  He doesn't really look like the athletic type, so I let it sit out there for a short while, and soon enough, I saw an answer to my initial doubts about this.  Skip rode the bench in high school and didn't even make varsity until his senior year, where he averaged less than 3 points per game.  I wondered if anybody would actually call him out on this, and sure enough, Michigan's own Jalen Rose came the the call.

Skip predictably acted sheepish and tried to change the topic as soon as he could.  This kind of stuff is happening all of the media, not just in sports, but I seem to see it more and more often on sports channels like ESPN and personally, it gets really old, really fast.  I'd rather have Sportcenter on 24/7 than listen to some of the people that come on some of their shows and try to act like they now things about sports or have some entitled opinion.  I know that rating are what drive television and marketing and its a failed system.  But when your the self proclaimed "worldwide leader in sports", I'd think you could move that base standard a little higher than everyone else.  ESPN has more leeway than probably any other corporation to not have as much flamboyance on their shows, but it seems like they just fall into the habit of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".

Maybe this is just a sports fans opinion of what an ideal sports coverage channel should be like, but I'd like to think that I'm not the only person who gets annoyed whenever Colin from Sports Nation or Skip Bayless or several other announcers say things that make you wish you could just change the channel and wait until they were done talking.  This almost seems like the game of who can attract more viewers and make more of an impression has reduced the standards of television of all kinds.  Maybe ESPN is just moving there more slowly than others, but I just hopes that the like of Jersey Shore and the Real Housewives don't some how get into the ideas of the producers of ESPN as a way to "attract a new audience."  I might just give up my hope for TV altogether and just use websites to get my sports news.