Not really surprised, to be honest. A lot of people are fed up with ESPN as a whole. They're tired of seeing LeBron and the Heat and its subsequent what if topics. They're fed up with constant coverage of..that Florida QB that shall not be named, they're sick of seeing the same teams being profiled, mainly the NY teams, Boston teams, the SEC in college football, Duke and UNC during college basketball season, and the other big name teams like the Lakers and Cowboys. (I'm a Yankees fan but I don't bother with ESPN's analysis of the team. I prefer Pinstriped Bible blog and YES Network, thank you very much!) More people are tuning into their local cable sport networks, other national sports networks or league-specific channels (i.e MLB Network, NFL Network, NHL Network, NBATV, etc.) for better, less biased and more balanced coverage on TV. Otherwise, it's the internet exclusively.
People perceive ESPN as the TMZ or Fox News of sports because even though they claim to be the worldwide leader of the sports, they're being hypocritical. Poker and Spelling Bees, really? Since when are those sports. But anyway, as of now, SportsCenter gets the most beatings and criticism out of all the ESPN shows. Along with everything I stated above, it seems to me that entertainment is being more emphasized than actual sport on that show! More debate and analysis and not enough news and highlights. I mean, how many segments do we need about LeBron and his legacy? Should I really care if Colin Kaepernick is wearing a Dolphins hat? How about showing extended highlights of an extra inning baseball game thriller? Or show more hockey highlights for a change? If lucky, they'll give a minute of coverage for hockey. But people gripe about very little hockey on Sportscenter even though ESPN doesn't have any NHL rights to broadcast games and thereby the argument behind why the lack of coverage during the season. But SportsCenter isn't the only one, at fault. First Take? Come on! Hearing Skip Bayless and Stephen A Smith just shout at each other for 4 hrs a day, 20 hrs a week and on the top of that, a wasteful best of show is not what I want to watch all year round!
Other than live sporting games, their 30 for 30 films and maybe ATH and PTI, I've already drifted away from ESPN. I don't need them to follow my teams and my sports!
P.S. The fact that they are wasting millions of dollars to build a redundant new SC set while laying off the wrong people does make raise my eyebrow very high
