Black Wednesday at the Worldwide Leader

As I remember that episode, Ted did say if his friends were fired he would quit as well. He then stuck to that ultimatium for several seconds until caving in.

ESPN's flagship program, SportsCenter, got away from its strength and where it build its largest fan base. Playing highlights of basically every single game that they could get footage of, and combining it with entertaining and sometime humorous interpretations of the action was endlessly enjoyable. Instead, John Skipper wanted to expand the audience, and make the "news" more about "stories." Outside the Lines is exceptional reporting, but SportsCenter was increasingly overrun with former athletes who sat at a mammoth desk at what looked like the bridge on a starship, and waxed poetic about the stars of the game. ESPN became celeb-obsessed. We saw stories about Dwayne Wade's house instead of any highlights of the game he played in. Desks full of talking heads just tossed around opinions instead of seeing what factually happened in a game.

ESPN tried to expand its audience by diluting the thing that made the core fan for sports and the network engaged in the first place-- moving away from pure competition and discussing the game, and moving towards celebrity and gossip.

A secondary point, but just as irking to me-- a cacophony of semi-educated former athletes stumbling through coherent segments on sports that they played, yet seemingly knowing nothing about what they were talking, is brutal.

#freeBarryMelrose

...and they paid too much $ in too many cases for the rights fees to the games they are televising.

Many of the recipients of these bloated checks are going to have to learn to get by with less or at least not budget in the big increases they've gotten every time the contracts come up for renewal.