ESPN would very much like the Patriots to win the Super Bowl in 2007

by BigBlueShoe on Jun 7, 2007 10:29 AM EDT in Bad Journalism

If you have ventured over to the Worldwide Leader in Schicht these days, you'll notice that ESPN's NFL coverage has leaned heavily towards covering the New England Patriots, and solely the New England Patriots. In fact, their coverage has shifted so dramatically to those pesky putritans that I even wondered if ESPN bought a minority share of the team, ala the Arena Football League. However, turns out ESPN does not own any part of the Patriots. Sadly, ESPN is just another ballwashing "news" outlet that has crowned New England a good eight months before the Super Bowl is played.

Don't believe me? Well, if you watched ESPN's NFL coverage TV show, NFL Live, this week it was pretty much all New England all the time. Same with ESPNews. Yes, I know New Engalnd's mini-camp started this week. So what! The Colts didn't get this kind of coverage when their mini-camp happened last month, and last I checked they thumped New England and went on to houst up some big shiny trophy that looks something like this:

Psst! ESPN, it was the Colts that won in 2006.

Heck, the biggest story generated out of that camp was the fact that rookie first round pick Anthony Gonzalez couldn't attend because he had to go sell shoes for the NFL.

However, when New England holds its camp, its apparently earth-shaking news, worthy of full, 24/7 coverage. Heck, go over to ESPN's site for even more Patriot love juicing. Click their NFL link and you will see this:

Yep, all three important, highlighted NFL stories on ESPN's website focus on these lovable, huggable Patriots.

Yep, that's right. ESPN feels that the three major news stories in the NFL ALL INVOLVE THE FRIGGIN' PATRIOTS.

Now, before you all say Ok, BigBlue, we get you. You hate ESPN. We get it already. WE GET IT! I want to say that this is not yet another moment where Stampede Blue kicks ESPN in its small nutsack. We all know ESPN is biased towards the Patriots because ESPN is based in the New England area, and that they are not interested in reporting on sports. They are interesting in ratings and viewers, and the Patriots and Randy Moss will generate more viewers than talking about Michael Vick's dog problems, or how a former NFL player ran a prostition ring using his live-in girlfriend.

No one should ever confuse ESPN with a sports news provider just as no one should ever mistake a NBA ref as an ojective enforcer of the rules of the game of basketball.

I'm just simply re-iterating a familiar narrative, one that we Colts fans are used to seeing: This upcoming NFL season, the New England are the best despite the fact that the Colts have owned them of late. This narrative has been established before nary a game has been played in 2007. Last year, the narrative was that no one cared that what Colts did in the regular season. Only making the Super Bowl, and winning it, mattered. No one cared that they started 9-0, tying the Curly Lambeau Packers of the 1930s for the best consecutive starts in NFL history. No club had ever started two season 9-0. Yet, no one cared.

This year, after winning it all, you'd think the narrative would change. Not so. No one is going to care what Indy does because they will be too focused on scrubbing New England's under-sack. Heck, the Colts could clobber the Patriots on November 4th, and the coverage won't be "Colts better than Patriots." The coverage will be "What's wrong with New England?"

Expect this all year, folks. New England is the favorite despite the fact that they have been completely and utterly owned by the Colts the last two years. No matter what the Colts do, no matter how many times they embarrass the Patriots, networks like ESPN will still carry water for New England and disrespect our beloved boys in white, gray, and blue.

My opinion: That's fine. They gave the Colts no shot to win it all when the playoffs started, and like most ESPN prognostications, they were proven dead wrong.

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I sympathize

All last season somebody else was always the best in the NFC. It gets old after awhile.

If ESPN is going to do a story on Brady doing hard work to get ready, shouldn't the picture of him not be of him resting on him bum shooting the breeze? Just a thought.

by WCG on Jun 7, 2007 11:59 AM EDT 0 recs

This is how they do things

It's not just with the Pats, this is a company wide philosophy. They focus in on one thing/team/player/story and hammer it to death. Watch any game ESPN covers in any sport. They'll focus on one player and talk about him the whole game, do features on him, analyze him. Any sport they'll pick one team that they've deemed the most important and zero in on them. The Yankees win 2 in a row and they go wall to wall all day talking about it. Sportscenter tosses the story to the baseball tonight crew who chat about it, then push you to the radio with Mike and Mike who have Steve Phillips on to talk about it, who pushes you to the website for a feature on the story by Jayson Stark. They realized it's harder to push the audience through the ESPN wringer with just "general sports news."

It's no coincidence that simultaneously their website, cable channel, & radio all discuss the same team, angle, or story. This is how they do things.

I watch quite a bit of soccer and there's a stark contrast between the way ESPN play by play guys do soccer games and the way everyone else on the planet does it. I've heard PBP soccer guys that work for both ESPN and other outlets and they've explained how they've been told by ESPN to focus less on the game and more on personalities. They want them to do features on a guy, they want the play by play guys to do less "play by play" and do more conversation about one team or player.

It's a far reaching philosophy I've noticed more and more the past few years. They care very little about the sport or the game and more about driving compelling storylines that they can use to push their audience through their many media outlets to follow.

Bleeding Green Nation Philadelphia Eagles Blog

by JasonB on Jun 7, 2007 2:22 PM EDT 0 recs

Can you blame them?

Honestly, I haven't checked out ESPN for sports news in weeks, probably months. The only reason I would be visiting their site is if their running commentary related to the Redskins, which rarely happens in a positive manner. The only reason I check ESPN is to skim for content ideas for my blog, beyond that I get all my news from blogs. ESPN is rarely the first person to run a story (and who cares about this anyways? We're talking about a 30 minute window before the story is picked up elsewhere), rarely has original or interesting commentary, and even more rarely on my particular favorite team.

If I were a Patriots fan, I'd be eating up ESPN's narrative. If I was a fan of the other 31 teams, I couldn't care less. If you have a choice between reaching the fans of one team or reaching none of them, I'd take the one in a heartbeat.

Of course this might be the tail wagging the dog. The reason people are increasingly tuning out ESPN (if that's even true; ratings might be up for all I know) is because they tunnel-vision the storyline so bad.

by Skin Patrol on Jun 7, 2007 2:40 PM EDT up 0 recs

lol

we posted that at the same time i beat you though

by MarkV0327 on Jun 7, 2007 2:42 PM EDT up 0 recs

Lying pirate hooker!

First, let me just say that great minds think alike, thus you clearly have a great mind. But check the timestamps: I winz0red by dos minutos.

by Skin Patrol on Jun 7, 2007 3:12 PM EDT up 0 recs

Aye ya caught me

my bad

by MarkV0327 on Jun 7, 2007 6:56 PM EDT up 0 recs

Storylines

Yes, you are right. ESPN does care more about the story lines than the actual game. But that is what makes the game exciting to watch for a lot of people. Now there are die hard fans for every sport, like us here, but then there are the casual fan that doesn't know that much about the in depth strategies of the game, but care more about the person, or the story lines associated with the person/team. It is just their way of, as you said, improving their ratings. Personally, I don't blame them.

by MarkV0327 on Jun 7, 2007 2:42 PM EDT up 0 recs

haha

And I bet you were going crazy at the lack of balanced coverage in 2003/4/5 when it was all Manning, all the time.

In fact, switch the names Brady and Patriots with Manning and Colts, and you could have a perfect copy of the rants that the Patriots fans went on a couple years back.

by CGM on Jun 7, 2007 3:43 PM EDT 0 recs