The Empire of Sports Paparazzi News is driving me nuts lately. If I have to sit through one more lead story of Brett Favre and all of his crap relating to retirement or reinstatement or whining & crying, I think I may throw up on the tv. Seriously, we are in the middle of a pennant race in baseball (several very close ones, I might add), the Olympics are nearly upon us, and we have to listen to this paparazzi junk! I mean really, that is what ESPN is becoming, nothing more than a reality show that follows around the personal lives of sports stars.
Count it up some night - they will have more stories about a guy in sports getting drunk than the importance of a pitching injury or crucial basketball series. Really, are we that shallow now? Do I really care if A-Rod is sleeping with a stripper or Madonna (oops, that was redundant)? Does it matter? It certainly doesn't affect him on the field of play - look at his numbers. And, why is it our business anyway? These people are just people too, and they are not perfect and they screw-up & fail just like we all do. Why should we have an interior look on their dirty lives while many of us are just as dirty? Because they play a game for a living? No. Sorry, that is not a right of the spectator. The right of the spectator is to be entertained by the game (or not), and to root for/against the teams.
Where did ESPN go wrong? They used to be a sports channel, who showed you everything from the "big four" sports to poker to billiards to karate. Now they fill their days with stupid reality shows, news talking heads bantering about nothingness (exception, PTI), and eventually stories about Brett Favre's travel arrangements, A-Rod's sleeping buddies, and another sports scandal that always involves baseball and never football. [I will rant about football on another day - and it will be long, passionate, justified hate.] The only shows of value are not SportsCenter (meaning specifics like Baseball Tonight, NBA Live, etc.) or the actual sporting events, except horse racing & horse basketball (oops again...I mean the WNBA).
Anyway, message to the Empire of Sports Paparazzi News - we are all sick to death of hearing about Favre, Bonds, Steve Smith, and NFL Camp Confidential for another last place football team when there are real sporting events still happening daily around the world.
Well, at least I am sick of it.
Posts
5 comments:
Have you sent this rant to ESPN or Rome? I think surely someone might listen to it...or not. Reality (tv) Bites.
I think much of the decline in the quality of all forms of "news" (dare I say television in general) is due in part to two things. 1) The over developed obsession of the majority of Americans with sensationalism and celebrity. How else can we connect to greatness if we don't know the minutia of our favorite quarterback? I mean, I for one would like to know what color underwear he is wearing on Mondays (not really). 2) The disconnection of the "news" organizations from reality and their own over developed egos. These behemoth organizations have created for themselves a self contained world in which they assume a god-like responsibility to inform the public of what they consider to be news worthy.
I couldn't agree with you more, Ryan. I'm not a big sports fan anyway, but I certainly am not interested in whining and crying, especially from people who make wayyyyy too much money, while really important people get a pittance (teachers, policemen, traveling educational materials salespeople, to name a few). Maybe if we taxed their windfall profits, they'd cut back, report real news and save money by not following every sports guy/gal around.
First of all I definitely agree. ESPN is becoming the MTV of what it does. At one time there was music on MTV. I would say ESPN is just falling suit to what any organization does as it grows larger. Weather it is ESPN, Walmart, or Church the larger they get the more corrupt they become. It usually starts with the people in charge and their need to perpetuate a need for their position. Our generation wants something real, not reality tv. I just hope that when we are in charge we will allow ourselves to be put aside to do what must be done. I don't even know if that is a coherent thought.
Andy, it's a coherent thought, I just don't have the trust in our generation. Look at who they are fawning over in the election this year - a fake and a communist/socialist. That was redundant, but you get the point. Yeah...absolute power does corrupt absolutely. No doubt in every area. Oddly another proof why socialism won't work either - it puts all of the power with one corporation - the government in charge. No thanks.
Post a Comment