Non in-game sports that I watch:

Food network: 45%
Travel Channel: 15%
Cartoon Network: 10%
ESPN: 10%
Other (Comedy Channel, FX, random stuff) 20%

lol?

there are a few (+ online consumption in lieu of TV, but perhaps my question was worded poorly for that), but they all pale in quality

i mean yeah it was an obv statement, but everyone always posts "ESPN WOAT" "i never watch it" "blah blah blah" "pointy elbowed blondes"

but you gotta admit as an overall package of a sports network, espn does provide a pretty good product with their programming. maybe some of their personalities are terrible or give generic casual fan dot jpeg analysis, but, at a minimum, it gets a rise out of you, promotes discussion and provides entertainment value.

clark watching cartoon network just slays me

Disagree. I mean, once you just accept that most of their stuff is professional trolling and essentially modified talk radio for TV (not to mention the actual talk radio they broadcast on TV), then it really loses a lot of value. It's poor both as a news-delivery vehicle and as an analysis vehicle. What else is there? I don't need ******s arguing with each other.

The analysis is really poor. Like, really really poor. The network employs some pretty decent statistical minds and yet none of that knowledge ever makes it onto the air in a reasonable way. I mean, try it - there may be a market for it. Butnahhhh, they don't even try.

75% of discussion the last few years has centered around Favre, Vick and Tebow, leaving other coverage totally lacking.

Heck, even the "news" is heavily biased towards leagues broadcast by ESPN at the time, or heavily agenda driven such as their absurd support of women's basketball despite a complete lack of evidence there is any interest at all.

I am hoping NBC's new 24-hour network is good, but I'm not hopeful. They definitely have a chance to make it work.

Fox had a good start to competing with Best Damn... a few years ago, but then ESPN bought all the talent and they've never recovered.

All the league-specific channels also hurts a comprehensive all-sport competitor. But I think it's doable still.

Adult Swim ftw. Loves me some ATHF and Robot Chicken. I miss SGC2C.

thats true. i still enjoy first take, ath, E60 and SC. occasionally watch nnl and sports reporters. but all those shows incorporate many sports. we cant get that anywhere else on tv.

nbatv (not sure how mlb and nhl networks are) could definitely get a lot better. they only have so many shows/programs outside of games to watch, and they replay the **** for weeks on end. and their personalities aren't the best either.

Perhaps you are right. Most of my ESPN consumption is limited to Sportscenter & general news coverage, where analysis is obviously minimal and reporting is more the angle. I don't really watch any of their football analysis shows, but that show w/ Jaws that runs at like 3 AM is the GOAT NFL show on TV I'm pretty sure. Baseball Tonight isn't bad for baseball highlights and news, but the casualfan "GRIT HUSTLE DETERMINATION" analysis is really, really wearing at times.

However, other times where they break down hitting or fielding mechanics always seem good to me. I guess the content there could be bad and I don't know it because I'm an unathletic goon, but I like it.

NHL Network is your go to network for thick Canadian accents

btw karak, thinking about it a bit more, I spend WAY more time on out of game sports on the internet. Whether it's mgoblog, burgeoning wolverine star, beyondtheboxscore, drsaturday, edsbs, soccerbyives, zonalmarking, shin guardian, and many others, I spend way more time on that.

Plus I'm actually paying attention to those sites.

Also I think if you view First Take sort of like a soap opera/purely for entertainment value, it's a great show. Same with Around the Horn and PTI sometimes.

Yeah, for actual news and highlights, all of the league-specific channels blow ESPN out of the water. NBA Gamenight or whatever its called is pretty good.

I just don't understand the reluctance by most channels to discuss real stats and have modern analysis/discussion. It's bizarre.

What's disheartening is that when something as transparent and easy to explain as sports is broadcast so terribly, it makes you realize just how much worse and how gross political and actual news broadcasting is.

Yeah blogs and written content online make up a vast majority of my sports media consumption. They have the best quality and allow reader interaction at a very high level. I used to get a warm fuzzy in my chest when Ken Tremendous would return emails I sent telling him how funny he is. I one time told him he should consider a career in comedy writing for TV or something. This was before he outed himself, haha.

Also, now that I think about it, I watch most of my highlights and clips online too. NFL.com play highlights are very good. They usually provide both the video and audio from the TV broadcast and will also provide a separate clip with the video from TV and the audio of the local radio play-by-play guy dubbed in over top. I love hearing radio calls of exciting plays and seeing it strung together with the video is a lot of fun.

MLB.com does this as well, but finding the radio + video calls is limited to 0-2 per game, rather than nearly every big play of the game like the NFL.

Yeah, but I think that ESPN's only programming right now is basically all soap opera stuff.

Clark, every once in a while ESPN will break out a WAR comparison for baseball. Trust me, it isn't compelling television.

lol good way to put it. i think that's mostly how I see it too. I find it hard to put up with wilbon nowadays tho. probably bc he doesn't know anything about bball, and I hold it against him.

What broke my heart is the day Jon Miller and Joe Morgan started talking about VORP... VORP was an outdated stat for at least a year at that point and so many better stats were available. Of course Joe Morgan made lots of condescending statements about it and Jon Miller resisted the urge to kill.

Mebbe not, but it's got to be better than letting people keep talking about wins and batting average.

It's crazy that they have the knowledge of stats and rather than use that knowledge to actually honestly analyze things, they cop out and pander to the least common denominator because it's too risky to be honest and say that RBI is a useless stat since a whole bunch of mouth breathers might suddenly think they're dumb.

espn missed a good chance to turn numbers never lie into the statgeeks favorite show. it looked like they were going to try it in the beginning, but got way too far away from it when they started inviting guys like eric mangini, hugh douglas, etc(bascially first take cast) onto the show. airing it around 630 would of helped some too, so more people could actually see it.

what % of the espn viewership do you think the "sabr-educated" baseball crowd makes up? it has to be absurdly low.

further, what % of the espn viewership actually cares to learn about sabr and proper analysis? i mean... that stuff is hard and you have to spend time thinking about it. plus maths and things. and it's different. different things are scary.

it's much easier to just say grit, hustle, kids got heart, jeter wins gold gloves, clutch hitting, man look at that batting average

you cant really blame them for pandering to their audience, but agreed it does suck

david cone is our saving grace on the YES network

i will warrant, however, that the popularity of moneyball may legitimize it and make the mainstream more interested than they were ever before. they love hollywood. they love baseball. hollywood made a baseball movie about nerds in their mothers' basements starring brad pitt. if we ever had a chance, this is it.

Yeah this. I hardly watch ESPN for sports news, aside from the standard tune in to sportscenter to see the highlights I missed. If I want actual info I'll go elsewhere. But I love ATH, have since the first time it aired just because of the general entertainment value of these idiots making hilarious contradictions and terrible predictions, and the outrageous stuff that occasionally happens like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tD3wzWT9A5Y

I mean, I blame ESPN that the nation still talks about avg, hr and rbi instead of something like obp, slg%, war or some such (dunno if those are the right 3, I'm no expert). And in the NBA, using PPG, FG% and 3% instead of 2pt% and 3pt % (or TS%), or even something like PER which, while flawed, isn't awful to use. It hurts my brain every time someone notes that "Player x is shooting xx% from the floor".

Heck, I loves me some Bill Walton, but last night he said "it's a shame so many people think all basketball is about is dunks and 3pters". He was lamenting the lack of passing, etc, but man, if one could get dunks and all open 3pters, that would be some awesome offense.

I am a grumpy old man, so I don't have cable. I only miss PTI and nothing else; if you need scores or breaking stories there are infinite blogs on SB Nation network for that.

Yeah this show is a huge joke aside from Charissa. They never talk real stats they're always just like The magic number is: 6! Thats how many INT's Rodgers has thrown this season! Discuss!