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Watched SportsCenter for the first time in about five years. What has happened to them?

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UKortho

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SenseMaker_Cats said:
Not sure some remember what Sportscenter was. Didn’t matter if you were 12 or 80, if you were into sports, you were watching it. At one time Sportscenter was ESPN. They’ve obviously moved away from that which is their prerogative if they want but it doesn’t mean Sportscenter doesn’t suck now.
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Tuned in every morning while I was getting ready for work back in the day. Haven’t watched it in years now. I wonder how far viewership has fallen.
 
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Ash Williams

Ash Williams

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I always loved the NASCAR highlights when they never forgot to tell you where Dick Trickle placed even if he was last.
 
HeismanWinner

HeismanWinner

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CatBearPig said:
What changed is you got old and are not their target audience anymore.
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Well, ESPN ubdoubtedly changed as well. It's focused more on talking head shows which are just excrutiatingly awful. Sports radio jockeys and TV talking heads are an onslaught of mind-numbing ignorance and attempts for sensationalism to achieve clicks. Stephen A. Smith commenting on sports he does not follow is easily one of the most cringeworthy things in media.

I don't think it's really "old man yelling at the sky" stuff because people pine for highlights of sports instead of listening to a couple of ex jocks, one nerdy host, and another oblivious female discussing their opinions.
 
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CatBearPig

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HeismanWinner said:
Well, ESPN ubdoubtedly changed as well. It's focused more on talking head shows which are just excrutiatingly awful. Sports radio jockeys and TV talking heads are an onslaught of mind-numbing ignorance and attempts for sensationalism to achieve clicks. Stephen A. Smith commenting on sports he does not follow is easily one of the most cringeworthy things in media.

I don't think it's really "old man yelling at the sky" stuff because people pine for highlights of sports instead of listening to a couple of ex jocks, one nerdy host, and another oblivious female discussing their opinions.
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There’s no doubt it’s changed and I’m not saying you’re old man yelling at the cloud. Hell, if you are, I am too, because I don’t like it either. I’m just saying they’re ratings are higher than they’ve ever been. It’s like music, the older generation will never get the younger generations culture. I hate modern music for the most part but they just keep selling more and more music. Rather we like it or not 15-25 year olds drive the sports and music markets.
 
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SenseMaker_Cats

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CatBearPig said:
There’s no doubt it’s changed and I’m not saying you’re old man yelling at the cloud. Hell, if you are, I am too, because I don’t like it either. I’m just saying their ratings are higher than they’ve ever been. It’s like music, the older generation will never get the younger generations culture. I hate modern music for the most part but they just keep selling more and more music. Rather we like it or not 15-25 year olds drive the sports and music markets.
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“Ratings for daily morning and afternoon studio programs—such as Get Up and The Pat McAfee Show—have seen recent double-digit growth. However, the network's long-term ratings in key advertising demographics (like 18-34 year-olds) have dropped by over 50% since the mid-2010s
. High-profile live broadcasts and opinion shows have occasionally suffered viewership drops due to carriage disputes and viewer fatigue over constant debate programming.”
 
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Glenn's Take

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Here's the thing that I think some of you are having trouble understanding. It's not the media's job to inform people of what's going on. It's their job to make money, just like any other job. If they cover the WNBA on their network than they will promote it. If they don't cover the World Cup, they won't promote it. Did wrestling just become more important on the sports landscape than it ever was or did they just start covering it as part of their subscription service? That's why as I've grown older the most useless classes I ever took in school were history classes. I see how they cover the news that happened yesterday. Why would I believe them about anything that happened 100 years ago?
 
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CatBearPig

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SenseMaker_Cats said:
“Ratings for daily morning and afternoon studio programs—such as Get Up and The Pat McAfee Show—have seen recent double-digit growth. However, the network's long-term ratings in key advertising demographics (like 18-34 year-olds) have dropped by over 50% since the mid-2010s
. High-profile live broadcasts and opinion shows have occasionally suffered viewership drops due to carriage disputes and viewer fatigue over constant debate programming.”
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I can’t comment on that as I don’t know all those facts. However, their 2025 and 1st 1/2 of 2026 ratings are their best over all ratings in a decade. I just saw it last night.
 
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CatBearPig

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Glenn's Take said:
Here's the thing that I think some of you are having trouble understanding. It's not the media's job to inform people of what's going on. It's their job to make money, just like any other job. If they cover the WNBA on their network than they will promote it. If they don't cover the World Cup, they won't promote it. Did wrestling just become more important on the sports landscape than it ever was or did they just start covering it as part of their subscription service? That's why as I've grown older the most useless classes I ever took in school were history classes. I see how they cover the news that happened yesterday. Why would I believe them about anything that happened 100 years ago?
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I’m nominating this for take of the decade. They’re not in the business of making us happy. They’re in the business of making money.
 
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Nightwish

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There's a recent press release stating ESPN's show ratings have increased. It's likely gyms, barbershops, etc. keep the channel on and whatever your feelings are, every sports fan knows who McAfee and Stephen A. are and they get massive contracts because they're lightning rods and their clips/shows are seen/discussed. I don't know what ESPN's dream demo is but a simple fact of life is as you get older, there are less forms of modern entertainment directed at you and older folks aren't where the money is. We just saw this play out at the box office. Spielberg's (79) film did decent but was clobbered by films directed by a 20 year old and a 27 year old.

On Sportscenter itself, as others have pointed out, it's July. What do you want to see from a daily highlights/interview show when the NBA, NFL, NHL, college football and basketball aren't going on and after getting stomped in the WC, I doubt casual US sports fans want an in-depth discussion on France vs Morocco. Clearly most of us aren't WNBA fans but hating something doesn't mean it ceases to exist lol. They have a stake in it and it's one of the few sports actually happening right now. Please don't be shocked ESPN is talking about it.

This kind of reminds me of KSR. Someone will call in in July wanting hardcore sports talk when nothing is happening. Then that caller casually forgets that the show is tailored for everyone and gets absurd ratings that no other local show comes close to.
 
CB3UK

CB3UK

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Summertime is baseball season, so for me it's not a big deal. MLB.TV has their recap highlight shows, and MLB Network serves as good background TV during the day with their talk shows. While inane at times, at least the women on there are hot and they arent woke DEI sport nonsense that people don't care about, simply because ESPN has a vested stake in them and is trying to push them to help generate interest and revenue.

What I don't like about ESPN is that in the fall and winter when they are talking about college football, NFL and college basketball (the only other sports I personally follow) their coverage is still awful. Their anchors and reporters are just Grade A douchebags and chacha.

So even when they are talking about/covering/promoting sports I care about, IMO, they're still absolutely unwatchable.


So I don't watch. Simple.
 
Wayne Dougan

Wayne Dougan

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Ukbrassowtipin said:
Because theres no reason for sportscenter as we all have phones and can pull up highlights whenever we want.

If they spend more time talking about the wnba its bc its one of their products and the world cup is licensed on fox.
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First of all, they started ruining SC long before the iPhone. But yes, phones surely didn't help.

However, I'd argue ESPN could have absolutely owned sports in the smart phone era, and it could have been built around SC.

I have the MLB package. They do these game recaps that are basically curated highlights with the local announcers for the game. So for example, in the Reds-Phillies game last night, when they package all the highlights of the game. When the Phillies do something good, they use the live commentary from the Phillies announcers. Same thing for the Reds. It's fine, but it wasn't nearly as good as DP doing the highlights back in the day.

Why not go back to that? Each game highlight would be like a reel similar to what was on FB. Hell, it could be posted on FB, X, etc. Throw an ad on the back or bottom of the screen as you go.
 
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paulcalhoun_rivals397471

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CatBearPig said:
There’s no doubt it’s changed and I’m not saying you’re old man yelling at the cloud. Hell, if you are, I am too, because I don’t like it either. I’m just saying they’re ratings are higher than they’ve ever been. It’s like music, the older generation will never get the younger generations culture. I hate modern music for the most part but they just keep selling more and more music. Rather we like it or not 15-25 year olds drive the sports and music markets.
Click to expand...
Are you talking about SportsCenter or games? If you are saying SC's ratings are at an all time high I'll need some kind of evidence (link?) to verify that as I believe it's audience is just a small fraction of what it once was. Whatever the target audience may have been a crapload of 45-65 year old men watched SC religiously at one time.
 
K

KyWideWes

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Dec 11, 2025
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Glenn's Take said:
Here's the thing that I think some of you are having trouble understanding. It's not the media's job to inform people of what's going on. It's their job to make money, just like any other job. If they cover the WNBA on their network than they will promote it. If they don't cover the World Cup, they won't promote it. Did wrestling just become more important on the sports landscape than it ever was or did they just start covering it as part of their subscription service? That's why as I've grown older the most useless classes I ever took in school were history classes. I see how they cover the news that happened yesterday. Why would I believe them about anything that happened 100 years ago?
Click to expand...
I don't think John Skipper was totally focused on making money.
 
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