Tuesday, October 16, 2007

ESP-Out

Photo by Flickr user LiveU4 used under a Creative Commons license.


Not too long ago, I was labeled as an "ESPN Addict" by some of my friends, and rightfully so. I used the conglomerate for all my sports needs, watching hours of ESPNNews and SportsCenter on end. College came around, and possibly as a result of not having a TV anymore, I started boiling my usage of it down to ESPN.com (with insider of course) mixed with podcasts of ESPN Today, Baseball Tonight, Mike and Mike, PTI, and Around the Horn (in other words, everything).

However, I realize now that since starting this blog, I hardly go to them for news at all. There are a few reasons for this, but mainly what it comes down to is the availability of other sources.

For example, I'd much rather read Shoals give a treatise on the beautiful game (though he has recently become increasingly cynical in doing so) than listen to Steven A. and Kenny Smith yell for half an hour (especially when the Jet lists Miami as third in his Eastern Conference power rankings). I'd take the musings of Sooze and Lizzy over that of Jayson Stark any day of the week (luckily for me, the Babes post multiple times per day which I can't say about Stark). The Nerds are a much more entertaining (and rewarding) way to delve into the numbers than the John Hollingers of the world. Why would I listen to the competitive bantor of Jay Mariotti and Woody Paige when I have Skeets and Tas (and don't forget JD) at the helm?

And finally I realized that what used to be my favorite ESPN contributor, Bill Simmons, is basically barely a journalist and probably as much of a expert on sports as I am (as in not much of one), and as such, probably sucked a lot of dick in his life to get probably the best job imaginable (get paid a lot to talk about sports and video games with your buddies for an hour a week, if that).

With the influx of the sports blagosphere and sites like Ballhype and Yardbarker, sports news is bountiful and easy to come by. While we were dependent on ESPN earlier in our lives, I'd like to think that now we have graduated.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Do you think it would be weird if I had a soccer urinal installed in my bathroom in my apartment?

Loren said...

I feel like urinals in private bathrooms are weird in general, but if you get one, it might as well have a soccer game attached to it.