T1B

OK - why in the hell does ESPN feel they need to give these 30 at 30 Sportscenter updates (or whatever the hell they call them). Why do they need to cut into a game in progress and give me an update about what I will see on Sportscenter that night. When the do this they relegate the game you are watching to about 1/4 screen size and some jackass from the network tells me that Marty Schottenheimer was fired and that A-Rod is reporting to spring training early. Do we need this information when we're watching a game? Don't we already have a ticker at the bottom of the screen? Aren't there like 30,000 Sportscenters on each day? Don't we all have ESPN News if we are jonesing for sports news 24/7? Why is this necessary? Why do they interrupt a game I'm watching? Does anybody enjoy this segment? Does anybody care?

I agree. I hate the segment. Most educated sports fans usually know what the topics are already. All Sportscenter is going to do is get a couple of their "experts" on the air and then argue about it for 5 minutes. Sportscenter has become Entertainment Tonight. They show more bickering and arguing over anything else and mostly beat every topic into the ground.

They have so many personalities at ESPN now, that they have to make sure people are watching Sportscenter, so they can pay for all of them.

Yep. Hate it. Almost as much as I hate the Sportscenter voiceover guy who talks in a deliberartely scratchy voice.

I'll tell you why: it's like sports talk radio and their constant updates......

1. they've got demographic information that says people channel surf or whatever you want to call it and "hit" on a channel for an increasingly small amount of time. and they sell ad time by the increasingly small increment since they can't guarantee an audience for an extended period of time.

2. it's less actual content they have to pay for themselves. this is the age old cost reduction for broadcast media or even today's cookie cutter wire service newspapers.