ESPN EMBRACES DETRACTOR BUT BRISTOL STILL BURNING: How much have things changed at ESPN? Will Leitch of DEADSPIN guested on ESPN Radio last Friday, with Scott Van Pelt hosting the interview (audio link). This is the same network which circulated a memo last year banning Leitch from appearing on any ESPN outlet.

DEADSPIN of course is renowned for giving ESPN a well-deserved wedgie on occasion, and like SbB, isn’t short on reportage and well-placed opinions about the sports media monolith.

Citing criticism from D-Spin, Van Pelt asked Leitch how ESPN could be “fixed” and “stop offending those who are blogging“. In other words, SVP grooved a BP fastball right down the cock to the sports blogger. Leitch’s response:

1) “Fire Dan Patrick”
2) “Have Bob Ley wear more clothes”
3) “Have the ESPYs four times a year”
4) “Be a little meaner to the women that work there, I think they’re getting a little too comfortable”
5) “Bring back ‘Quite Frankly’”

In the wake of Leitch’s 700-foot gopher ball off Van Pelt, we really want to help ESPN “stop offending those who are blogging” (rather patronizing phrasing, Scott?). So here’s some obvious observos:

1) ESPN was hopelessly skunked on the Pacman Jones-Vegas strip club fiasco by sports blogs and print media outlets - so it just ignored the story until it HAD to cover it. Because the network has no competition from other sports networks (where are you, Rupert and Mr. Malone?), it now thinks it decides what is newsworthy and what isn’t.

2) ESPN allows the play-by-play contracts it holds with sports leagues to color editorial decisions (see canceling “Playmakers”, decreasing NHL coverage, more Arena League coverage).

3) ESPN fires on-air personalities and gives the listeners/viewers absolutely no reason for the departure. Bristol execs want us to care about the personalities they push in front of us, so why do they think they can blow out Harold Reynolds and Dan Patrick and give us nothing (Patrick’s explanation was far from the truth - he wanted too much $ and was shown the door). We’re not talking about intimate details, but give us SOMETHING.

One of the reasons for the rise of a sports blog like Deadspin is Leitch’s transparent approach with his visitors (he recently roundly criticized D-Spin’s site redesign). ESPN could certainly learn something from his methods.

4) Since sports media competition has receded, ESPN has repeatedly made disastrous programming decisions. The entire EOE division is a major boondoggle (somewhere Mark Shapiro is giggling). And shows like “ESPN Hollywood”, “Quite Frankly” and features like “Who’s Now” and the fake Steve Phillips press conferences are prime examples of what happens in a monopoly. When you have no competition, you have no accountability, and creative quality inevitability suffers.

5) ESPN.com is losing users in droves because of a laughably busy design and clunky navigation, not to mention eminently annoying audio and video that automatically begins blaring when you hit the home page.

Oh yeah, and how about charging users a fee for “Insider” content featuring these journalistic heavyweights:

Getting back to the Leitch interview, Van Pelt lastly asked him if reporting on the personal lives of ESPN personalities was appropriate, specifically citing A.J. Daulerio’s legendary dispatches from Miami nightclubs during Super Bowl week that detailed the sordid activities of assorted ESPN personalties (Van Pelt’s implication was that D-Spin should leave well enough alone).

Leitch response: “One of the things that’s exciting about it is humanizes people (ESPNers) to average fans. That they’re being themselves.”

True enough, but we don’t think we would’ve been so kind (we know, you’re shocked).

ESPN has spent the past 20 years overpromoting its personalities as celebrities - marketing them in many ways the same as the athletes they cover. SportsCenter and network specialty show anchors earn gigantic salaries and enjoy the accompanying trappings of fame and fortune (something Van Pelt himself references in the interview).

Endorsements, books and thousands of ESPN commercials later (which are mostly clever, btw), Van Pelt now tells us that we shouldn’t cover ESPN personalities like other media celebrities? Keith Olbermann, Bill O’Reilly, Larry King and Rush Limbaugh are savaged by the political press and tabloids. King can be hounded on occasion in L.A. by the daily and weekly tabs. Likewise O’Reilly and Olbermann in New York.

Memo to SVP: When you’re famous, people care what drink you ordered at a South Beach nightclub. When you’re famous, people care about your personal hygiene in public places. When you’re famous, people care about your propensity for drunk-dialing.

If SVP, Stuart Scott, Chris Berman, Sean Salisbury and Shrutebag don’t want people to care about them (and the coverage that goes along with it), they should take a job covering high school sports in Terre Haute.

In the end, Van Pelt failed to absorb what Leitch was intimating throughout the interview - that ESPN has become an opaque corporate entity that treats its customers as mindless dolts. And we all know that as long as ESPN is part of Disney’s giant Conglomo empire, that will never change. Never.

CLARIFICATION: Because of a screw-up on my part, the author of this post was originally listed as Jason. I wrote the post. - Brooks