ESPN bill themselves as ‘the worldwide leader in sports’ and they may well be. I know that they are one of the main cricket channels in India and they own Cricinfo, one of my favourite sites. I’m less enamoured with their American arm; even when they’re not discussing/showing non-sports like poker and Nascar they pay far too much attention to the east coast. (They do show Premier League football though, which is good.)
Tonight, however, was the worst coverage I’ve ever seen. They somehow have decided that after advertising their coverage of the Gold Glove awards they would not show it on any of their four main or two alternate channels until the end of a university American Rules football match. This despite that the main channel was showing the world series of poker and that they have a channel dedicated to university sports that was not showing any live match at all. Their two alternate channels showed just showed a logo. The award show was finally shown, but fifty minutes late. It was a slap in the face to baseball fans and showed that ESPN do not care about the game.
Of course, I understand that some people care about university Yank Rules and that some people like to watch poker on TV (though I find the latter incomprehensible). I don’t think more people wanted to see poker than the Gold Gloves, however, and in any case ESPN prevented someone like MLB Network from showing the awards on time. They could have shown the Yank Rules match on the channel dedicated to university sports. They could have put poker on an alternate channel. They didn’t. If they don’t care enough about the Gold Glove awards to show them when they say they will they should leave it to a network that will.
Defensive Indifference 