The Rise & Fall of ESPN 

May I just say thank you? Those were some funny commercials!

Big time Timmy Jim! (If that was you, kudos)

I grew up on espn, 43... Sad, that a piece of my childhood is dead..

Don't thank me I didn't come up with the campaign. I just got to write a bunch near the end of their heyday. Ones with Manny Ramirez, David Ortiz, Jorge Posada, Adrian Peterson etc.

I loved those so much. This should be the pinned comment and thank you for helping build a large part of my childhood

Him ripping the Cowboys is fun, but yeah that's about it for me

@@BrickKremlin so Chris Russo is black entertainment? pretty sound logic you have

@@BrickKremlinracist for absolutely no reason

And they run out of legitimate topics, so they get more and more outlandish

Stephen A lucky he’s a consistent cowboys hater because that’s the only thing folks actually like about him

Now they just simp for whatever political opinion Lebron James or Megan Rapinoe has, and then pat themselves on the back for being socially conscious.

Outside the Lines, 30 for 30 and inspiring the NFL to do Hard knocks. There has been some great ESPN content.

they are so good

I used to look forward to watching that show and the one on before it "Around the Horn" about 15 years ago, but all those talking heads shows got tired real quick

PTI worked because Tony and Mike simply did what they did at the Washington Post and set up cameras. It was natural.

​@@SnoopyReads I think PTI & Around the Horn were different from just normal talking head shows because there was something else controlling the talk. For PTI it was the clock & for Around the Horn it was the points & the mute button. The mute button was huge to me & Reali is great with it

@@catman-du8927 yeah turning it into a game show helped make it more exciting especially in the early days of the show

Honestly I feel about Perna the way people feel about the early ESPN anchors.

Me too. then I saw this pop up in my feed and realized I hadn't watched ESPN in years

NFL prime time was so captivating…the music and commentary had me hanging on as if world peace hangs in the balance! Miss those days and that is what the network currently is lacking. They take themselves TOO SERIOUSLY today.

Yeah they were attempting authenticity and then they basically handed over the reins to SAS whos just a black Skip Bayless, plus they basically sold out to Nike...all in all its all about over hyping whatever sells the most products and crapping over everything that doesn't/fit a narrative...so basically they'll treat a guy like Joker like trash until he sells enough products while treating a washed up guy like Lebron like his the Goat, which is ridiculous, and that hes still as good as his prime...in other words everyone is either a goat, which again is dumb, or trash with nothing in between

It's important to document where espn came from and where it's going in the future. Real talent is not created its made. Through hard work and a great pulse on the average sports viewer and their need for objuective sports analysis. And espn has to walk that line with little repercussions. I don't see any movement other than new competition in a regional sense. No more one size fits all content. Those days are numbered.

Class Act all the way!

Yes. He was the best. Not the same since his passing.

He was awesome. Loved Stuart, Mayne, Eisen & Patrick.

I remember when he was the back-up weekend sports anchor on the NBC affiliate in Orlando before going to ESPN.

Never forget losing it as a little kid when I saw Paul Molitor or someone hit a homerun and he went "Booyah!" That was back before the Scott Van Pelts came in and thought they were f'n standup comedians.

Big facts

The sad part is that it's not even the entire NBA and NFL. They basically have the same 3 - 4 teams in each league that they discuss so it's the most repetitive mind numbingly stupid content out there. Couple that with a lack of actual broadcasting talent that's been subbed with athletes and personalities who aren't equipped to run with a broadcast show, and you have the current disaster.

They brought back NHL and CFL from Canada after the NBC Sports Network died. So now you can't say that just do NFL and NBA. They actually do a lot of different things you just don't watch ESPN News where they put all the boring stuff or everything on ESPN+ honestly who has all that time.

However I will agree with you with one thing their talk shows or shows where they analyze stuff are mainly in three parts NBA, NFL and they throw in MLB while not doing a daily MLB show. Instead the MLB talk is sprinkled in other programs like Get Up or First Take. Definitely Sports Center. The soccer show went to ESPN Plus if it's still there. The show on NHL must be there as well otherwise they don't have one. But they had one until they lost it originally. Then you got the college stuff.They definitely do a lot of college stuff. But not so much college baseball even though they cover it, games, to ad nauseam. Look I don't watch ESPNU all day. So who's to say they wouldn't talk about college baseball or college softball.

That's what drives viewership. People generally aren't interested in those sports. It's not like ESPN didn't take that into account, they did, which is why you have the current format. The anti whiteism is what forced me to tune out

The ESPN commercial with Clayton & SLAYER was hilarious !

the people in ESPN now are idiots that focus too much on politics.

RIP PROFESSOR

He was a Pittsburgh guy who didn't kiss the local pgh sports teams asses. Like the Steelers. It was a breath of fresh air. RIP.

It creeped me out when I found out he had that ponytail

2000s as well

Sportscenter would have me leaving late for school!

ESPN was definitely at its peak in the 90s. After I did my homework, watched cartoons, played video games, I would often tune into the 6pm SportsCenter with (depending on the day) Dan Patrick, Kenny Mayne, Stuart Scott, Rich Eisen, Linda Cohn, Robin Roberts, etc. The main difference between ESPN back then and now was that not only did ESPN2 still have its own identity as kind of an extreme/niche sports channel, but the actual on-air personalities didn't impose their social and political agendas on viewers. The most abrasive personality back then was probably Lee Corso on Gameday. ESPN in 2023 penalizes its employees for being well-spoken, unassuming, and educated.

Back in the day great people doing there jobs once woke showed up it went black and ESPN became soft and ignorant they even made the last dance a mockery when you leave out Mr Jordan going to Colorado 3 different times to illegally video tape #23 how powerful was the videos it made one a King and the other one LePussy James the 2 18yr Olds killing Mr Jordan was Karma I'm 18yrs old how old were the killers 😢

ESPN+ has (almost) killed ESPN. Their business model is “Bait and Switch” on steroids. I can’t go to their website, look at the articles I can’t read, stare me in the face because I need a subscription, or go to an article and realize I can only read about two of “ESPN ranks the 10 Best Teams.” Then you finally buy a subscription - - only to find out you are not bought in at the level you need for some offers. Is there anyone but the diehard sports fan (i.e., online daily sports gambler) who is at least not extremely irritated with that media experience? I have started bookmarking other sites on my browser under a tab that gives me a superior individual experience.

The golden age was definitely 1993-97. Craig Kilborn and Suzy Kolber were on SportsCenter from 93-96 then Kenny Mayne started in 94; Rich Eisen and Mike Greenberg got there in 96 But once Keith Olberman left in 1997 and broke up the greatest SC duo ever with Dan Patrick it was never the same. You also had Stuart Scott, Mike Tirico, Steve Levy, Bob Ley, Charlie Steiner, Robin Roberts, Chris Meyers, Jack Edwards, Linda Cohn, Rece Davis and Karl Ravech all doing SportsCenter. I also think that was Berman on top of his game. The cupboard was never more full. And the reporters: David Aldridge Bonnie Bernstein Chris Mortenson Sal Paolantonio John Clayton Peter Gammons Hank Goldberg Andrea Kremer Pam Oliver Jimmy Roberts Sunday Night Baseball still had Jon Miller and Joe Morgan And 1996 was the first headgear pick on College GameDay. And it was still just Chris Fowler, Lee Corso and Kirk Herbstreit before it became the bloated monstrosity we have now You had Big Monday with the real/old Big East (and Super Tuesday) back when college basketball still meant something ESPN Classic launched in 95. ESPN News in 96 And of course the best program in ESPN history: the Sports Reporters hosted by the legendary Dick Schaap

Remember when they had good shows like NFL yearbook or that edited tournament they did with all the dynasty teams?

@@michaelahurt No dude. They might have had more names in the 90s but the brand itself wasn't as big in the 90s as it was in the 2000s. They didn't have nearly as many shows in the 90s because they didn't have the production value yet. Also cable and satellite TV had become more popular in the 2000s than in the 90s so they had more viewers. Make no mistake the 2000s were the golden age of ESPN and I'm a 90s fanboy.

@@chadzard4 I'll take quality over saturation. I agree the business/financial height was the 2000s though. That's not really arguable. Idk if it was this video or somewhere else but the peak was 2011 I think But OP was about SportsCenter not ESPN as a whole even though I went beyond SC in my response I actually prefer the 90s production quality tbh. Lol. It got so over produced as time went on. Shit is like CoCoMelon for adults.

@@michaelahurt The quality was still good though in the 2000s that's the thing. They had become this massive global entity but they were still making great content and didn't get overly political. We'll probably never see anything like that ever again.

It was nothing like it especially getting some with a girl and turning it on afterwards 😂

That's because it was the only way to see the highlights before the internet. You don't really need them anymore, pretty much like MTV

just think how lucky you were to experience ESPN at it's best and that you didn't have to grow with the modern/current version of it.

Idk. That lady singer from the beginning was the best thing I may have ever seen. ESPN is fun and all, but that was art.

It is a shame what they did to that network, how many people lost their jobs because of egotistical morons. It's amazing what a dozen people can do to hard working people.

@buchiklop110 - thank you for bringing back those memories! 🥲

Its a business.. they have to go to work man! That’s why they leave and let them leave because they will build up the next guy for less money… it’s a a business man they can’t pay everyone millions for 2 takes a week lol

No, it was not good. It was all manipulation and marketing. It was all bullshit.

That's a facts. Mainstream media has turned into outrage media. Ppl are tired of it.

It is due to its medium. Cable is going out of the window very quickly due to streaming services and platforms like Twitch, RU-vid, and TikTok. The most common thing people watch are sporting events and even if they don’t catch it, the highlights are put out through social media anyways. So sports news is really irrelevant. The “best” shows are the debate shows that function as a podcast of people saying outrageous shit. Other news sources or debate shows wear their bias so blatantly or go so outrageous that it takes away from the actual news portions. There’s nothing of true substance anymore.

Yeah hopefully they’ll go back to creating meaningful content.

You are saying the quiet part out loud. No one wants to admit to that.

I wouldnt call that political. Its jist a fact.

also for less news-ey sports content i love the clips of the kelce brothers' podcast that I see on tiktok and should honestly get around to watching a full episode

@@abebuenodemesquita8111 Kelce Brother’s New Heights and Shannon Shape’s Club Shay Shay are very good podcasts.

for baseball it’s all about Jomboy Media

Who is Tom, Five, and Tree? I am just now getting into sports (or particularly NFL) seriously and have been watching ESPN. Aside from the looks of Molly Qerim, watching it makes me want to die a terrible death so I googled and found this video. I read your comment and I'm looking for alternatives to ESPN and I don't know who Tom, Dick, Harry, or Tree are.

Context?

@@1000bomb that's when all the politics began.

@@1000bomblast month in his charity drive to all the different stadiums Tom was brought onto McAfee

Grossi broke 4th wall

@@AkeemGriffith-gj5rdwdym politics?

he'd agreed it sucks nowadays. It's too political.

I also miss Steve young’s analyzing the nfl draft.

Oh wow. I agree. I would love to hear his opinion...and Tim Russert's 😂

@@koolmaaan at least he didn't shove political nonsense down people's throats and have dumb takes on stuff. unlike everyone in today's ESPN.

People's refusal to accept political talk and outright fear of it is why we are in the shitshow that is America today. Shoving things under the rug is not a long term solution no matter if the average low IQ human believes it is. And it will be your kids' kids that will reap the true consequences of what has begun in recent years. But who cares as long as it is not me?

I am a year younger then you bro and I support your statement 100%

Turn 46 in August and yeah being a 80's-90's kid was the best. Are we not the ones to blame for the current condition of things? We allowed and created the world and conditions that are fueling this insanity of today.

I'm around the same age as you, and I've seen it happen as well. But truth is, all those networks serve niches that don't really NEED a television network anymore. Think about it. MTV, and to a lesser extent BET, were build around showing music videos. Why would someone go watch those networks when they can look at whatever video they want on youtube right now? Now, it's a bit different with ESPN. I really think their biggest detriment was the general continued rise in cable costs, and the fact that younger people aren't as into sports as the previous generations were. Having live sports kept them on top longer than MTV, but it's getting to the point where that's not enough now. ESPN will be a shell of itself 20 years from now.

Lool everyone is just jumping on the hate train because some famous people have said that smh

@@seanwilliams7655 Because its not the same. You know what happens when I go on RU-vid and watch what I want to watch? I ONLY watch what I want to watch. Watching music videos on TV back in the day meant you absolutely were going to see things you never knew about. It's not the same, and it's certainly not as good.

That'll never happen to MTV

The business evolved into opinion shows that held the players and teams up to ridicule and that's what some people want to hear. The fantasy and betting shows are boring. Why would I want to hear my teams being attacked by mean spirited jerks - like brian noe and zach gelb.

Then it started to get stale and boring after a while….I used to watch too😢

ESPN is dead - ruined like media like education - like major cities - woke atheist - racist - indoctrination is what ESPN is- merit used to be important Not know Example host put Lamar jackson in his top 5 of current qb’s - a joke - pure wokeness

WHAP

And the inevitable 9ers vs Bills SB prediction

Berman was great with the highlights, Cosell was the best

Well, to be fair, he was including everybody in Asia, Africa, South America and France. By that criteria, he was up in the 99th percentile. Maybe 98th.

That’s one of those comments where using the term world instead of game, sounds larger and is more accurate

Anyone qb who is in the nfl, let alone a starter is one of the best. It's only when you compare them to superstars you think they're bad. How many qbs you think try to get into the nfl and how many make it past the 52 man roster cut?

Or espn news was 30 min. I didn't have an hour everyday , somedays.

I used to do the same thing! If the Cardinals won, I'd stay up watching the highlights package 2 or 3 times. Times have changed though. I have not watched Sportscenter in at least 8 years.

Disney destroyed espn and all the other companies they bought out.

They already owned it For decades They have always owned it

Disney went to shit

Are you just now finding out about Viacom too?

You know they owned it from the start, right?

Hey Doc whatchu doin here??

@@aztecwrrior1997 just watching RU-vid 🤷‍♂️

"Which Sportscenter did you watch? All of them."

@@retropunk24 I loved those commercials where the Team Mascots worked in cubicles & didn’t know which restroom they was supposed to use! Those were great!

Love their coverage during Dwight Gooden/ Daryl Strawberry, Don Mattingly, and Lawrence Taylor age as well as the NY Jets "Sack Exchange"! As you say: "Great time to be alive"!💯👍

Yep, that's why the hate on Skip is misplaced. Sure, you can blame him for taking advantage of our rapidly declining culture but it's not like he's the one that caused it.

NBA is the most overrepresented of all American sports. The low coverage of baseball on espn is largely due to the MLB having better tv deals with FOX. Just like how the NFL always had better TV deals with CBS and FOX.

Yeah when they started focusing on one topic 24/7 for a week, like " Bounty Gate" or Mantei Teo I started tuning out. They just run things into the ground

Maybe if we’re lucky they’ll quickly mention a World Series game in between all the Lebron talk

"I remember watching ESPN First Take following game 7 of the World Series, Giants vs Royals. And too my disappointment, they did not mention Baseball, which shocked me, instead mostly only talked about basketball." And when I got the New York Times National Edition the day after the Texas Rangers' historic World Series win in 5 over Arizona, they didn't even say a word about it, only talking about the NFL, college hoops and running. Hello?! That was a huge World Series win by a team who's never had one, and you're not gonna talk about it?!

I didn't realize how much I missed them 😢

The best post NFL game highlight show ever.

Was at times better than watching the actual games.

Yeah. Skip Bayless and Stephen A. Smith. Two guys I CAN NOT STAND. Two blowhards that say whatever and half the time sound like total idiots. Any time they show up, I look somewhere else.

The weeks long coverage of certain personal stories like Mantai Teo being catfished, the Penn State scandal and Bountygate killed off my interest in ESPN for good. Covering the same topic 24/7 for days at a time just didn't make sense to me

@@SnoopyReadssome of them I think deserve coverage because they directly impact the sport being covered (Penn State and their SA culture for example). But endlessly dragging Mantei Teo was so unnecessary and cruel.

Like they are fighting the war on sports instead of enjoying sports with you.

Going even further back, RIP Page 2, Hunter S Thompson and Ralph Wiley

A big issue with ESPN was that shows like Around the Horn, PTI, and First Take stood out more when there were fewer of them. Replicating the formula burnt us all out.

@@fortynights1513no the problem was going political and pushing racial divide

​@davemartino5997 all the propaganda killed espn for me too

Getting too political is what started the downfall.

@@fortynights1513First take was ok at first but now it’s just ridiculous.

Bang bang

Niner Gang

Forty-Whiners 🏈 🦅

This is a genius video. Well done Brandon.

I loved how every year,no matter what, he would surprisingly pick the Bills and the Niners to go to the Super Bowl.

Nobody circles the wagons like the buffalo bills

Go Bills Cant wait for home opener will be my 11th or 12th Ive attended now

And his chargers super bowl prediction every year 😂

Don't eeeeeven care

At least F1 is covered more.

Nascar was way better when it was just regionally popular in the the South

It was also due to ESPN that IMSA, F1, IndyCar, and several other series were able to build audiences worldwide. The coverage was state of the art and the pundits seemed to truly care about racing, especially in the era that the series broadcasts were supplemented by SpeedWeek and later RPM 2 Night. For some reason, ESPN chose not to bring back a dedicated racing news show in the late 2000s, when they carried at least one race from every major series. If they truly cared, they could have invested more into their motorsports coverage and therefore convinced SPEED and later Versus/NBCSN to up their game too. Who knows where motorsports would be now if these networks were all competing with each other and constantly seeking to deliver the best, most in-depth coverage possible with their own unique styles.

@@adamprice3466 I wasn't alive back then, but it sounds like past motorsports TV coverage as a whole was more beloved when multiple different networks were broadcasting races in a particular series. I can see why executives prefer exclusive deals with specific networks, but I'd argue that such exclusivity has done more to hurt these series rather than grow them. People have their reasons for watching certain networks, and I think if a series broadcasts its races across many networks rather than just 1 or 2, they have a better chance of bringing in more viewers and more demographics who will give the other networks and therefore the series as a whole a try because they have more ways to get into it. Competition among networks also pushes them to improve their coverage, and if you lock 1 or 2 into a contract, they'll likely decide to offer the bare minimum under the impression that they don't have to try because motorsports fans have no other choice but to watch their network, which will turn them off of both a network and a championship in the long run. You don't have these problems when many different broadcasters are airing a series in my opinion.etworks were competing to buy broadcasting rights to individual races rather than a whole series