The Death of Real Sports Journalism: What Happened ESPN?

The first time I picked up a basketball…I knew. I knew that I would love the game for the rest of my life. I would shoot basketballs into a makeshift hoop, in my backyard, for hours until I reached a certain number. 30. Then 100. Then 200. Each day, aiming for a higher number. Basketball was the sport I loved first. When I was in high school, I was introduced to a show by my father. It was called Pardon the Interruption with hosts Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon. At the end of the show, a young Tony Reali, the eventual host of Around the Horn, would go through a list of errors committed by the hosts. It was a comedic ending note to a show that changed the course of sports debate history. Tony and Mike would offer their perspectives on a host of daily sports topics, often with their own brand of candor and humor. Both coming from newspaper writing backgrounds, their opinions even though mixed with humor, would be informational and thought-provoking. I watched the show secretly aspiring to be like them one day. In a way, it changed the course of my sports experience. I wanted to be as informed as they were so when people, in everyday conversation, offered up a sports take, I could offer up my own. It was peak programming. And once Around the Horn was the prelude, it was an hour of television that made every sports fan smarter.

Then something happened. In my mid-twenties, Skip Bayless and Stephen A. Smith began to grace the ESPN airwaves with their takes on everything sports. At first, their outrageous opinions were simply comical, and many could have been considered halfhearted. Skip Bayless didn’t really think Lebron James were overrated? Maybe he did. Maybe he didn’t. Sometimes I think we’ll never actually know. One thing that happened was the world of hot takes began and somewhere along the way, ESPN succumbed to the world of those takes. Smith’s antics regarding the Dallas Cowboys used to be comical but now they just give reverence to a team that has not met expectations since the 90s.

Joe Burrow is overrated. Luka Doncic will never be the leader of a championship team…and he’s overweight and drinks too many beers. Anthony Edwards is the next Michael Jordan. Jalen Hurts is not a top five quarterback, not even in the top ten even though he’s won a Super Bowl. (Just to list a few)

ESPN has created this world and amiss to what landscape it has contributed to. The debate show is not to be taken for granted. What Wilbon and Kornheiser created was one of sports journalism legends. What has followed has diverted from that. Of course, on television, ratings are important. The success of programming is imperative but what ESPN has created is a ratings factory. Overturning real honest reporting for a click bait type of headline. The sports story has become lost. Take for example, what happened when Caitlin Clark entered the WNBA. Her first season was mired by constant conversation about her privilege and the lack of support the WNBA had received in years past. Yes, it is true that the WNBA has always lacked for support and funding, and it is well known that the players do not receive the amenities that the men do. Lost in all the coverage and hot takes, was that fact. The women are drastically underpaid and deserve better. But that was not the story covered. What was covered was the many opinions on how people felt about Caitlin Clark. A woman, who brought interest to the sport. Yes, a conversation needed to be had about racism and privilege but the mass of opinion that overflowed was not real sports journalism. It was a hot microphone on the airwave. That is what happened to ESPN. No real conversations. Just a sentence to garner a reaction to garner a catchphrase to garner yet another reaction. An assembly line of takes.

When I picked up a basketball so many years ago, life was different. Technology was at its earliest baseline. Computers were a dial up. Phones had cords attached to walls and it cost money to make a phone call past a certain mileage. The crispness of a newspaper appeared on the doorstep every day and even more layers could be unpacked on a Sunday morning. The sports page was a list of scores and upcoming game schedules. Writers would report on sports happenings with various perspectives and then their own. If you didn’t like it, you could turn to the next page and read a box score or find the comic section. Life is different now. Most newspapers run at differing speeds and less human capacity and are digitized. A good sports story can be lost in a simple scroll of your cell phone. In a vanish.

ESPN finds itself in the new world of digital media competing with other platforms like Peacock and Amazon, who increasingly try to draw in more viewers and create their own analysis teams. In the sports industry, it may still dominate the overall coverage of all the major sports leagues but it’s increasingly gaining its mortality. Once respected and admired, it has begun to become widely viewed as a saturation of bad takes. It has contributed to a mass majority of sports stories being lost in the stratosphere and an overflow of comments on videos where people wonder where it all has gone to. In ten years, what will become of sports journalism is up for discussion, but one thing can be for certain, ESPN was one of the forces that contributed to its demise.