The Ten Most Annoying Things About ESPN 1

ESPN has 24 hours a day to talk about sports and about two hours worth of material. It is always on. More American males can name the third basemen for the Sox than the Attorney General of the United States. I don’t think people are stepping back to see how ridiculous this is. Here are the Ten Most Annoying Things about ESPN:

1) There Are No Consequences For Being Wrong – Pretty much 24 hours a day, ESPN features experts who predict what team will win what game. They throw in their token opinion, half of them are wrong, and they get up and do it again. Given these odds, does this not render their jobs completely pointless? Why can you, the sports fan, not do the same thing with your friends? I promise you they are just as accurate even though they don’t wear suits.

At one point late in last year’s NFL season, Chris Berman, who picks the winner for every game, was well under .500 percent. That’s almost hard to do when you’re that familiar with the game. You could get half the games right just by picking the home team or the team with the better record.

These guys have no incentive to be right. I want Berman’s car on the line when he makes his Super Bowl prediction. I want to see Jalen Rose doing pushups when he’s wrong about a series.

I would not recommend watching this video but here is a quick synopsis of the analysis: Nope. Nope. Wrong. No. Nope. Wrong. No. No. No. Nope. Repeat and watch your life slip away before your eyes.

2) The New York Centric Coverage – ESPN is located on the east coast so their coverage is skewed toward east coast teams, particularly New York, because journalists like to use expense accounts in Manhattan. I’m tired of sitting through reports from townies saying things like “The Knicks might trade Carmelo Anthony for Blake Griffin.” No they aren’t guy. Nobody outside of the five boroughs thinks that’s a possibility. It never stops. Now we have the constant jerking off of Derek Jeter. If Jeter played in Kansas City he would just be another good player. I looked up his stats. He plays in New York. Doesn’t make him a war hero.

2) The Source Things is Stupid – So a source told you something was going to happen. Then it didn’t happen. Your source is now an idiot, and you are bad at your job for reporting what he said. The entire idea of anonymous sources is even more ridiculous because the source has no incentive to be right, since you’re the one who looks stupid.

Also, sources lie so that you will report things favorable to what they want aired. A source will tell you they aren’t trading a player when they intend to in order to gain leverage. Since you suck at discerning motives your audience has to suffer through inaccurate reporting as pawns for shrewd businessmen.

Say you have a deadline and zero material. Wouldn’t it would be super easy to make up a story with a bogus anonymous source to save your ass? Clearly I’m not the first to think of this. I get the need for anonymous sources in legitimate journalism. But the United States isn’t going to trade Joe Biden to Canada for Tony Blair and an intern. This isn’t Watergate. Its not that serious.

4) SportsNation – If you haven’t seen SportsNation, don’t. The awfulness of this Sesame Street for unemployed meat heads deserves a list unto itself. It features sound effects to enhance highlights (think a boingyoyoing sound if a basketball bounces off the rim.) It obsessively takes polls for no apparent reason, such as “Better Shrimp Scampi Recipe, Tony Romo, or Aaron Rodgers?” It compulsively compiles clips and names every single one with bad Daily Show style puns – except they’re being sincere – like if they show a clip of a catcher running for a ball and falling into a sandwich, the clip will be called “Catcher in the Rye.” Basically just combine everything from the E! Channel gossip shows that dudes hate with the beer belly jock culture that turns chicks off, have it hosted by a couple of fake laughing Regis and Cathy Lee types, throw in an Asperger’s inducing laugh track, and you have a cultural abomination that I’m convinced only appeals to mentally challenged virgins and chardonnay sipping housewives with pituitary disorders.

5) Encourages Sanctimonious Behavior – If you put First Take on mute, you might think you were watching two guys discuss allocations to combat the infant HIV rate in Sub Saharan Africa. The furrowed brows, the careful contemplation, the respectful point and counter point. Then you turn the sound up and realize these two assholes are talking about football. It’s so dumb. The precursory,

“Now, Stephen A, you know I respect you, you’re a brilliant man, but I’m going to have to disagree with you regarding Serge Ibaka’s mental fortitude.”

Please blow each other off the air. Its sad that two adult men playing dress up and pretentiously discussing batting averages is what now passes for intellectual discussion in this kindergarten society. Sports are supposed to be fun. If Skip Bayless got as riled up about gerrymandering as he does flagrant fouls, America could possibly get back to its rightful place in the world.

6) Statistical Overload – Let’s say Prince Fielder hits a home run. Cool, people hit home runs everyday. But what could make this homer seem more noteworthy than it actually is – one of millions in a season that lasts 162 games. What if I told you Prince Fielder is the first guy to hit five home runs in the month of August while also hitting at least two doubles and stealing six bases on a winning team while playing in a dome with a hangnail? Now he’s done something nobody else has done! Technically true, but if you get crazy enough with math, almost every play and every player in the league stands out as a statistical virtuoso to the point that these designations mean absolutely nothing. Its just a way to distract you from the fact that you’re watching something extremely boring and you should go read a magazine. Its like telling every kid that they’re special. They’re not.

Also, I’m sick of hearing about Advanced Metrics. Sounds smart right? What are they? They are just statistics. Numbers are counted in the Base Ten System which rarely factors in metric or imperial measurements. Sometimes these Advanced Metrics do actually use the metric system, with results like “James Harden travelled 1.2 miles in last night’s game.” Wait, that’s imperial. Any organization that works with numbers in the entire world uses the Metric System. Its really not that impressive of a designation.

7) Does Not Acknowledge Gambling – I know ESPN is owned by Disney and wants to whitewash the world of sports to make us believe it is a wholesome endeavor undertaken by nice men who occasionally commit felonies and is run by friendly billionaires whose tax breaks will surely trickle down to you at some point, but to ignore the vast influence of gambling on sports popularity is boarder line irresponsible. Maybe its because on-air talent giving gambling advice would be inevitably murdered by Columbian drug lords or guys named Travis from Elko, but with many ESPN personalities clearly struggling for something halfway worthwhile to say, this seems like an obvious call.

8) Occasionally Delves Into Politics – Do you know what ranks one spot behind the Boston Marathon Bombing on my list of All Time American Tragedies? Its when Stephen A. Smith gets to dish on the state of America afterwards. Explain this lineage of events: The Boston Marathon happens. There is a terrorist attack. ESPN personalities are afforded the opportunity to ramble about nationalism. I’d rather hear what Noam Chomsky thinks about the Broncos.

9) Tenuous Cross Promotions – Does anyone else like to pretend television networks aren’t all one of the same giant conglomerate actively engaging in thought conditioning? Do I really need to know why TNT is forcing Ernie Johnson to lie about watching Agents of Shield? Are you forcing me to Google the fact that ABC owns ESPN which is leasing its programming to TNT and that Google will soon own all of them? At least that’s what the Google Sponsored Ad said. Why not just cast Lance Stephenson as an actor in Agents of Shield and have the whores from The Bachelor scrimmage nude at half time. Ratings secured, less commercials.

10) Football Analysts And Commentators Constantly Using The Word Football – This is an actual transcript of Ron Jaworski’s analysis of Colin Kaepernick:

“Now look how he drops back to throw that football. He’s got the football in one hand and plants his left foot so he can throw that football while he protects the football. You see the defender here, he wants to get that football, but its already released. That’s a well thrown football from one heck of a football player.”

WE KNOW WHAT SPORT WE ARE WATCHING! STOP! PLEASE! Was there a problem at some point with balls from other sports finding their way onto the football field to the point it became necessary to specify constantly? I don’t see any tetherballs or croquet rocks present sir. Nobody’s taking out Peterson’s ankles with a bowling ball from the 50. Its going to be a football from here on out.

But hey, at least ESPN is always on!