In a world without sports, ESPN scrambles for a new game plan
For a harrowing few hours last week, it felt like the world was falling apart after the triple-whammy of President Donald Trump’s destabilizing national address about the coronavirus, the National Basketball Association’s suspension of its season and Tom Hanks’ announcement that he and his wife, Rita Wilson, had tested positive for the novel coronavirus. I tried to watch the cable-news channels, but all I got was the usual yelling. So I turned to ESPN.
And it was remarkable. Please know that as the founder of Deadspin, a website that (before its recent maiming by private-equity owners) covered ESPN with an endlessly critical eye, I have a hard time saying this, but I must: I’m not sure a network could have covered an unfolding crisis any better.
Where ESPN is going now, in the Era of No Sports, is hard to tell (I have some thoughts, below), but on the night in question, “SportsCenter” had all the information I could want, and only the information. The NBA reporters provided immediate, intelligent updates on how the league was handling the news of a positive coronavirus test for the Utah Jazz star Rudy Gobert, which had prompted the season’s suspension. Updates from baseball’s spring training hinted at how dicey the regular season was looking. And viewers got a good sense of the imperiled status of various college basketball tournaments, including the soon-to-be-canceled NCAA Division I tournament.
In charge of all of it was anchor Scott Van Pelt. As far as this sports obsessive was concerned, Van Pelt was the Walter
Cronkite of one of the most extraordinary evenings in sports history. He was calm and measured, not exactly making me feel better, but making me feel as if I knew as much as could be known about what was going on.
Since then, ESPN has in many ways fallen back into its old habits of self-promotion, loud “debate” (nailed by a “30 Rock” satire with the show “Sports Shouting”) and fevered sycophancy toward the NFL, which is in the middle of its trading and free agent season. Hard to blame the network too much for that: There isn’t a lot of sports to cover. With the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention urging restrictions on gatherings of 50 people or more for the next eight weeks, and Trump suggesting capping it at 10, it’s clear that ESPN has to figure out at least the next couple of months. But, hey, so do the rest of us.
The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday said ESPN’s plans include repackaging old games, showing recorded programs and trying potential “novelty” sports. It’s worth noting that “live” sports didn’t constitute a large part of ESPN’s programming even before live sports died. Its “30 for 30” documentary series provides a massive backlog of material the network can mine. Now the sports-deprived are pestering ESPN to hurry up with its 10-part “The Last Dance” documentary about Michael Jordan’s last Chicago Bulls championship team.
The channel’s daytime programming is especially reliant on talk shows, not on live sports, and while there’s certainly less to discuss in a sports-free world (as this disconsolate sportswriter can tell you), there’s still plenty of hot air to spread around at the headquarters in Bristol, Conn. You try telling Stephen
A. Smith there’s nothing in sports worth braying about.
We may need Smith to conjure some subject matter for us, actually. The sports-information vacuum is unnerving. So much of the average sports fan’s enjoyment is based on the kind of arguments that Smith relishes, based on the constant hum of low-impact news that has driven sports-talk radio, and ESPN, and all of us, for years. ESPN will miss that, but it has the personalities who have mastered, well, making something out of nothing. Continuing to do so may feel like a public service. Heck, Tom Brady leaving the Patriots – that’s a month of gab right there.
I’m not sure what the network’s “novelty” ideas include, but producers should check out director Steven Soderbergh’s underrated basketball movie, “High Flying Bird,” from last year. A subplot involves NBA players, during a lockout, streaming games they play in a gym. Wouldn’t you watch LeBron James and some of his NBA buddies choosing up sides and playing at the local Y? Heck, I’m watching a video game play itself right now. I’d weld my eyes to the screen.
ESPN has spent much of the past decade making itself more and more powerful through various platforms. Much of this has been alarming, particularly with so many of the layoffs of terrific journalists at the network and at its websites. But whether the network realized it or not, its power and scope has put it in an excellent position to weather this sports-less storm.