ESPN

Did Sports Center get stupid, or did I get smarter? I remember really enjoying the Dan Patrick and Keith Olbermann version of the show. I was about 19 though, so maybe I was just wrong. Either way, I know the show sucks now. Here are some theses against the present version of Sports Center.

• The people at ESPN are the last on earth to realize that we do not and never will care about women’s basketball at either the college or semi-pro levels. This is mostly because nobody wants to watch a sporting event they could compete in. That’s why the Little League World Series is primarily for pedophiles, just as women’s hoops is primarily for lesbians. Yes, it was fun to watch and ridicule the first few WNBA games, but stop forcing this shit down our throats.
  
  
• The show should be more diverse. The women’s basketball is a false step in the right direction. It would be cool if they showed more clips from sports that are a bit out of the mainstream, but don’t suck. I’m thinking of boxing, international soccer and so forth. I have noticed a few highlights from these sports, but more would be better. There’s plenty of room, because few want to see every homer from the Tigers, Indians game.
  
  
• The sappy human interest stories are ridiculous and nauseating. I don’t want to see a 5 minute piece set to bad piano music about Tubb, the retarded janitor at UNLV who goes to every basketball game, knows the teams won loss record for the past 20 years and eats his own ass crumbs.
  
  
• Stewart Scott is the highest profile anchor on “Sports Center.” Black guys in their 40s who insist on using terms like “Da Bomb” and referring to the new Jay-Z album are just plain embarrassing, boyyyy.
  
  
• There are an appalling number of crude ad tie-ins during the show. The low point came with the working of that moronic Coors Light song into the body of the show, accompanying NFL highlights. Not only were they trying to pass of a commercial as a segment, they were trying to pass off the most annoying commercial ever made as a segment.
  
  
• They stole their little “quiz the celebrities” bit from their old anchor, Craig Kilborn, and it sucks. It’s the “5 Questions” bit from Kilborn’s late night show. Like Kilborn, “Sports Center” blows a good idea by making most of the questions boring and/or easy. It would be so much fun to see a jock who ostensibly graduated from the University of Michigan peppered with questions like “who is the vice-president?” or “what is the square root of 81?” and falling on his face. It would also be cool to see which star athletes are also bright people. Instead they just ask boring bits of trivia about recent sports. “What was Jose Canseco’s last team?” Snore.
  
  
• We’ve seen lots and lots of dunks over the years and those of us in the three digit IQ club are no longer impressed, yet “Sports Center” treats each dunk as if it were a legitimate UFO sighting. So a seven-foot tall guy with nine-foot long arms can stuff a ball down a ten-foot high hoop? Big deal. Last week Robert Lang scored one of the prettiest goals of the season. It was number 3 on top 10 plays, bellow two generic, “I am tall,” dunks, which so dumb that it actually angered me. Give me killer crossovers, impossible glove saves, diving catches; in other words, feats of skill, not feats of height.
  
  
• I literally can’t remember the last time I laughed at one of the anchors’ lines. If you’re going to turn a sports highlight show into a stand up act, at least be fucking funny!
  
  
• It’s become far too obvious that the “Sports Center” anchors want to watch Brett Favre, Kobe Bryant, and A-Rod gang bang their collective wives. Perhaps the cast could even serve as fluffers? I’m not the most macho guy in the world, but even I am sickened by the anchor’s constant, shameless fawning over the masculinity of athletes.