This is Sportscenter, presented by PowerAde

A major staple in America’s sports-driven lifestyle is the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network (commonly known as ESPN).  Some of the people in arenas nationwide have two goals when going to a game: watch their teams beat the other team and to get on ESPN.  When these people do get on TV, there is a good shot of them being shown on the network’s main staple of the past 20 years, Sportscenter.

Sportscenter is the news show on ESPN showing some of the highlights of some of the “important” games (in the opinions of the producers and the viewing public).  Sportscenter is the show all the athletes want to be on.  These macho sweaty men try to pull off some insane moves that normally wouldn’t be advised because of the degree of difficulty is astronomically and exponentially high.  But if it comes off looking easy, the people go absolutely insane.  People have a problem where if they see something that looks extremely nice or extraordinary, they are attracted to it like a moth to a flame.  ESPN knows this.

One reason that the network is cognizant of the public’s fixation with the supernatural play is that the basic format of Sportscenter has changed dramatically over the past five years.  In 1998, Sportscenter was shot in a basic television studio with a plain background and two large screened televisions off to the side of the duel anchors of the show.  The presentation of the show was basic.  The highlights ran with the anchor talking over giving a generic play-by-play of the action shown and when the highlights were over, a full screen overlay with the score and some individual stats were listed for players on both teams (or in the case of individual sports, individual stats for some notable players). 

On the afternoon Sportscenter featured a story similar to a feature story on any network national news, ran with some real journalistic skills used.  The network ran replays of its early morning-late night (for people in the Pacific time zone) continually usually from an hour after that show went off the air to noon Eastern (about 11 straight hours of the same show with no changes).  Flash forward to the 2003 edition of Sportscenter.

Sportscenter has now become “flashy”, trying to catch the eye of everyone who happens to be surfing through at that time.  Before the show even starts, with its show teasers, the camera moves around a screen with select clips of highlights.  Certain things emphasized spots have a teasing message written below (for example, a possible problem in a glorified setting like the beauty of a city like Orlando, or Tampa will get a message like ‘Trouble in Paradise) to get the message across that this is something very important.  Then the show starts.  The studio is a large, open area with an LED scrollbar on an upper balcony (that is only seen on intros promoting a sponsor).  The background is semi-transparent with some activity seen behind like people working (on what, we don’t know).  Flat-screened plasma monitors that drop down are off to the sides.

Then, the highlights start.  They now have some background music in every highlight.  If something important is going to happen, the highlight is paused, a person is isolated, and the highlight resumes, all the while, your attention was drawn to that person who made a spectacular play.  But now, some of these anchors feel as though they need to inject some personal “flavor” in these highlights, via jokes, fake accents, colloquialisms from the anchors upbringing, etc.  Sometimes these artistic injections take too long to explain and by the time the specific injection for the play is over the highlight tape has moved two or three plays on, leaving some plays which were just as spectacular without the same dressing up.

During some of these highlights, the producers feel as though they had to inject some sort of visual theme into a particular highlights package.  For example, last year during a game between the Toronto Blue Jays and the Baltimore Orioles, Sportscenter decided to package the highlights into a bird watching theme, complete with birdsong and a binoculars cutout.  The anchors spoke softly as though they were actually watching birds, which isn’t really beneficial during a sports highlight show.  Then some highlights are packaged with completely unrelated material that has nothing to do with the team mascot or sports in particular.  Using Elvis song titles to emphasize a particular theme during a game which had an Elvis promotion was passable, but showing Elvis during the highlight is unforgivable. 

And when the highlight is over, a basic score overlay that maybe takes up about a quarter of the screen in the bottom left portion.  What is given is score and stats of one player, a far cry of giving basic in-depth stats of both teams that Sportscenter gave a few years ago and that is shown for a few seconds.

The causes of ESPN making drastic changes to its highlight show probably lie in two areas.  The American public has a shorter attention span than it did a few years ago.  The overall length of the highlights haven’t changed, remaining relevant to the amount of exciting plays made, but the constant hyping of individual plays has increased.  A lot of these plays get replayed from two or three different angles whereas a few received this special treatment a few years ago.  Therefore to make a lasting impression in the minds of the common people, these spectacular plays are shown, not only two or three times in the individual game highlight, but also in teasers for and in a top 10 plays of the day segment.  Also with the increase of media across the country, ESPN needs to grab all the attention that it can by getting flashy in its presentation of the highlights making them more spectacular than they really may be (and as a side effect, the athletes themselves realize this, so most of them constantly preen, primp and pass up the simple play just so they get their spotlight on Sportscenter).   With all of the eye candy in these highlights, a person is much more likely to forget what channel they were watching or to get that person watching if they weren’t watching already. 

The one thing that hasn’t changed is the fact that ESPN still plays the late night Sportscenter for nearly 12 straight hours (1 AM to 12 PM on ESPN and 12 PM to 1 PM on ESPN2).  But there are some people who watch the same Sportscenter for several straight hours, maybe for the flashiness and maybe because that person forgot what exciting play Kobe Bryant made against the Bulls last night.  That can artificially pump up the ratings which can be a signal to the network that they must be doing something right so they continue to do produce low quality shows that appeal to those who forget what a player did a mere 60 minutes ago.  The other reason is the driving force of the American way.

ESPN is owned by Disney, but ESPN has several spin-offs it created in the last 10 years, ESPN2, ESPNEWS, ESPN Classic (bought by ESPN), ESPN Plus, ESPN Radio, ESPN the Magazine and ESPN Deportes, a domestic Spanish speaking ESPN.  To maintain all of these ventures, ESPN must cross-promote all of these entities someway.  During a football segment, the anchor doing that segment may make mention of a more in-depth look at something that was in the segment could be seen on NFL 2 Night on ESPN2.  And if cross promoting doesn’t help attract viewers to those other areas, ESPN has a very flashy Sportscenter which can attract anybody at any time if the right effect takes place.  The flashiness will hold the people over the entire hour. 

ESPN also has sponsors for everything, much more for the occasional fact segment that it had five years ago.  All of those sponsors who buy time for a segment get a very good return of interest for their investments.  Sponsors are plastered very conspicuously on the screen.  With such good product placement, the viewers buy more of that product.  The company makes more money and plugs more of their investment into Sportscenter.  More sponsors means less time for highlights.  That means the really spectacular ones get in, which leads to more bad play which leads to more bad games for the people to watch in arenas and sports networks, like ESPN. 

Like all successful programs, Sportscenter has evolved from what it was, even a quickly as five years ago.  Instead of being the vehicle to deliver last night’s highlights, Sportscenter has now become an all entertainment program that happens to specialize in sports.  Apparently the people in charge feel as though this is the main way to go to attract ratings.  Apparently these same people also think this makes their show better.  In the minds of some people, the flash and splash are ruining what Sportscenter is and always has been; a sports highlight show.  Shows such as this are a constant reminder that money can and always will control everything, even the things that it shouldn’t— the action on the playing field and those who televise it.