This Developing Story Just In

The alarm clock sounds, the coffee pot is propelled into action by its timer, and I sleepily reach for the TV remote to turn on SportsCenter. It’s tip-off time for another day, and whether I’m home or away, ESPN is tossing up the ball to get things started. And if I’m slow on the draw on the clicker, I know The Bird has my back. DaDaDa, DaDaDa…

Back in the day, I first got hooked on starting my day with SportsCenter because I wanted, make that needed to get scores and highlights of the previous night’s games. No Virginia, there wasn’t always an Internet. It used to be that SportsCenter was chock full of scores and highlights, and the Rosetta Stone of the genre was “The Big Show”. To blunt the impact of each Monday morning, Dan Patrick and Keith Olbermann gave us 90 freakin’ minutes of highlights interspersed with truly clever, often downright hilarious commentary. For us old-timers this was pure bliss, for the ”The Big Show” served as a welcome respite to our normal routine of dodging dinosaurs and contemplating uses for that new “wheel” thing-y.

I got to thinking about this the other morning when I turned on SportsCenter and was greeted with a segment on the “Top 10 Developing Stories for the NFL in 2010″. Earlier in the week we’d had the obligatory saturation coverage of the Super Bowl and its aftermath, and the previous day we’d been treated to highlights of the Saints victory celebration in New Orleans. There was nothing more to say. Honestly.

Now I know the weather’s been bad in the Northeast lately, and communication lines may have been down. So in the spirit of public service I offer this gentle reminder to the folks in Bristol:  THE FOOTBALL SEASON IS OVER!!! Give it a break. Relax. Take some time off. Tony Kornheiser, you can finally check into getting that “I Heart the NFL” tattoo you’ve been craving. Mel Kiper, let your hair go natural for a couple of days while considering this – if you spent the same amount of time tracking the daily activities of female collegiate athletes that you invest in male collegians you’d have a host of restraining orders sworn out against you by now. Mark Schlereth and John Clayton, this is going to come as a shock to you – there is no such thing as a “breaking story” about a sport that won’t see its first day of practice for months. And to all of you I say from the bottom of my heart…I truly don’t care in February if Brett Favre is coming back to play in September!

With that out of my system I turned to the Lead Stories of the day. Rick Pitino denies interest in Nets job (meaning of course he’ll sign with them as soon as his season is over). Lindsay Vonn’s shin injury prognosis. A preview of the NBA Slam Dunk Contest, replete with expert analysis from every conceivable perspective. And of course, breathless reporting on Danica Mania as her NASCAR debut draws near. Evidently there were no actual sporting contests played the previous day. 

But then the clouds parted and miraculously footage emerged of a real, actual game. And what a game it was – a quadruple overtime women’s basketball contest between Utah and TCU, featuring one of the greatest buzzer-beating, game-tying 3-point heaves I’ve ever seen (by Utah’s Kalee Whipple). It was pure highlight magic, worthy of “The Big Show” in its hey-day. I wanted more.

I clicked over to ESPN2. Nothing but talking heads – Jay, Dana, Skip, Guest Debater Whose Name I Did Not Recognize. At one point the talking heads were engaged in serious discussion about…other talking heads. Click.

ESPN Classic. Cue Beethoven for his “Ode to Joy” – I was greeted with an actual game in progress. Unfortunately however that game had originally been played some time ago, and I already knew the ending.

“How about ESPNU?” I thought. “That channel was supposed to have been created specifically to cover college games!” Click. And there, much to my dismay was a simulcast of an ESPN Radio show hosted by The Entitled One.

I had been vaguely aware of the existence of The Entitled One for some time. Occasionally during the middle-of-the-weekday dead spot in programming I had caught bits of his show on the car radio. He was nothing special to listen to, and his material never struck me as very original. What he has in spades however, is smugness – hey, he has his own ESPN Radio show, and we…do not. Does that not put him on par with the elite athletes that he discusses?

What put me over the edge into Full Boycott Mode though was a show of his that I caught last October (again while in the car).  The Entitled One was in the midst of a rant about how, given the dispersal of broadcast rights, it was hard to find the MLB playoffs on television. He freely admitted that he had seen only a few innings of the recently concluded Angels/Red Sox ALDS series, and “not a second” of the Colorado Rockies NLDS series against the defending National League champion Phillies. And he capped off his diatribe by saying, “Hey, I have a social life!” I almost drove off the road.

Over the years I’ve had the pleasure of meeting and working with a great number of people just starting out in their careers as sports journalists and sports management professionals. Their stories are all different, but they share the same common bond – they would kill for a job like the one held by The Entitled One. I know for a fact that there are literally thousands of people capable of doing his job who would not consider it an imposition on their time to look up a listing for a game – and then watch it from beginning to end, social life be damned.

I say all of this because I fear that the lunatics have taken over the asylum in the sports biz, much to the detriment of the Sports Fan. And in the spirit of full disclosure I will admit to some culpability in this evolution myself. Ten years removed from the time that I crawled into the belly of the beast of this industry, I honestly can’t say whether or not I still get the same charge out of simply watching the games.

But I do know this – I need to find the answer to that question.