When exactly did Sportscenter start to become unwatchable?

[wdcbooks]

There is a certain type of embarassment you get from watching a really bad sitcom. The first time I felt it was when I used to watch Three's Company and I had to cover my eyes because I was so embarassed for the inane situations the characters were in. I actually feel that with Sports Center now.

The first time I remember feeling this was when they started doing football highlighs while playing the "TWIIIIIIINS" jingle from the Coors commercials. Then they moved on to the Gatorade highlights set to music, then jacked up and now "Who is Now". I just can't take it anymore. I still watch BBTN because I like Gammons and Ravech, but I would rather watch the sports highlights on my local news.

[ThaSaltCracka]

Interview, Will Leitch and Scott Van Pelt, on ESPN radio

[Iconoclastic]

Unfortunately I'm not old enough to remember a time when Sportscenter was good.

[NajdorfDefense]

1998 - early 1999.

[MicroBob]

I also would be really interested to see how their ratings have moved in this time.

I think it's pretty universal among actual sports fans (dudes like us) that Sportscenter is nowhere near as good as it once was.

But I'm guessing that some of that idiotic stuff is designed to draw in the more borderline fans who aren't normally as interested in every single highlight from each baseball game.
Lets face it. Unfortunately no matter how crappy they make sportscenter most of us sports fans are going to continue to watch it (or settle for ESPNNews). They are trying to appeal to a wider audience.

Very much seems to be the MTV school of doing things. Make it as idiotic and flashy as possible to be more widely viewed by an audience of morons.

[tuq]

MicroBob,

Re: demographics, it's worth mentioning that my mother went way out of her way to tell me over the weekend how stupid she thought the whole who's NOW thing is. We weren't talking about it, she's not a big sports fan, but it was on TV and she brought it up. So I'm not really sure what group they're trying to capture with that. Teenagers?

As for Sportscenter, I was actually raised to watch CNN Sports Tonight with Nick Charles, Fred Hickman, Jim Huber, Dan Patrick, Dan Hicks, Van Earl Wright, and others. Really good show packed into a half hour and they showed the sports in blocks, i.e. all the baseball scores, all the basketball results, etc., instead of jumping around like a crackmonkey to keep you tuned in.

Also, the lengthening of the show is intolerable. In its heyday it was a half hour per night, maybe an hour at the end of the weekend as a sports wrap-up. Now it's a goddamned hour every night and 90 minutes on Sunday/Monday. Ridiculous and unacceptable, even with a DVR.

[JaredL]

I'm not sure when this started, but I got comcast about a year ago. When you hit the info button for Sportscenter it describes the show as "a hip, Emmy-award winning scrapbook of homers, slam dunks and touchdowns." This describes in a nutshell what is wrong with the show.

So for the when did sportscenter become unwatchable I'll go with when it became a scrapbook of homers, slam dunks and touchdowns and not a high quality summary of sports that day.

[shemp]

I'm amused to hear a bunch of folks who watch the show regularly tell me why the show is unwatchable. They know exactly why it is unwatchable, and I thank them for warning me against it.

I'm thinking it isn't what it was because the world has significantly changed. But I don't know much about news/media/entertainment-- I'm not sure if it isn't being in the target demographic or my inadequate consumption. One of the two, I'd bet.

[FlyWf]

[ QUOTE ]
March 24th, 2003

[/ QUOTE ]

My 21st birthday, trivially enough, but it sounds about right. When lived in the dorms I'd watch like 3-4 hours of Sportscenter a day. Now I watch zero hours a month.

[g-bebe]

The Canadian version of Sportscentre aires on TSN, and while I personally despise TSN due to all of its coverage being terrible, and its commentators being absolutely moronic, I quite enjoy a couple of the Sportscentre people (Jay Onrait and Dan O'Toole). They're purposely retarded, and it's actually bearable.