ESPN is a great thing, they televise live sports, give fans all the coverage they want and they get exclusive news and interviews that many people love, but recently the network has become more corporate, more about celebrities and more about Tim Tebow.
All these reasons are reasons why the ESPYs suck. There was one great thing about the ESPYs and that was Jim Valvano's 1993 ESPY Speech and apart from that, name one more memorable moment. Back then the ESPYs at least were about 'something', now all it is boils down to athletes and celebrities bumping elbows and having ESPN along for the ride. And Michelle Beadle can try to bang Aaron Rodgers or Clay Matthews, or whoever.
ESPN also just laid off a ton of people and said it was due to the high costs of sports rights fees and while that is probably true, why waste money on the ESPYs? What are sports fans really getting from this? Sure it doesn't cost $500 million to produce (no right?), but it still is money that could keep good people doing their jobs.
This is just one person's opinion and while I don't plan on watching the ESPYs, you sure can.
Deadspin.com summed it up perfectly:
"There are other big expenditures, too. How big? Think charter flights. Some stubborn athletes and celebrities demand them. ESPN uses Disney's jets when it can; nevertheless, ESPN's on the hook. How much do those flights cost? "Anywhere from $25,000 to $50,000," says a source familiar with the show's budget.
Or let's take an even more specific example. We heard a story recently about Ben Roethlisberger's infamous appearance at the 2009 ESPYs. Shortly after the awards show, Roethlisberger's name showed up in a civil lawsuit. The accusation was sexual assault. ESPN didn't cover it and got raked over the coals for seemingly protecting an athlete who, just days earlier, had enjoyed a great seat at the ESPYs. It turns out that he was also on the cover of USA Today's weekend edition, to drum up ESPYs publicity. (It was a lame cover.) The total bill for that bit of publicity, featuring an athlete ESPN adored and four-time ESPYs host Samuel L. Jackson, grimacing together in a really terrible photoshoot? After accounting for flights and logistics, it came to somewhere between $10,000 and $15,000, a source told us. These are the little things that add up.
Every single year, the conversation about canceling the ESPYs resumes. But our sources tell us that the show has never come close to actually getting scrapped, not even in the layoff year. (ESPN wouldn't confirm any of the numbers in this story, offering support for the awards and saying "it is the premier multi-sports award show celebrating sports and athletic achievement on many levels.") Walsh and his supporters-among them the show's well-respected longtime producer, Maura Mandt-routinely offer up this argument whenever the "we're bringing a community together" argument doesn't fly: Do you want Fox Sports or CBS or NBC to start a sports awards show if we cancel it? Because they will.
It's dubious logic, and surely sounds worse than that to the hundreds of ESPN employees who were let go earlier this year and are now looking for jobs with those competitors. No matter; the ESPYs won."
