Talk:Criticism of ESPN

Deflategate article
I erased the part about Deflategate because it looked like it was written by a New England Patriots' fan or a Tom Brady's fan and it didn't have any citations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Smithy5555

Here are some articles proving this section was biased:

http://deadspin.com/bombshell-espn-report-the-patriots-were-huge-cheaters-1729286402

http://deadspin.com/what-exactly-happened-with-the-steelers-headsets-1730005682

And this citations would describe my point very accurate:

http://deadspin.com/the-patriots-are-sketchy-and-deserve-scrutiny-1744511593

Leo Bonilla (talk) 08:06, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

Miguel Tejada controversy
What about the Miguel Tejada controversy? They decieved him into having an interview where they confronted him about his age. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.30.250.190 (talk) 04:50, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Someone should add info on their alleged bias towards certain teams. For example there is much more coverage of teams from the northeast. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.133.12.101 (talk) 18:16, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

eddie g death. in the blurb or whatever its called. its said that he was criticized for saying that he died using steroids. but then at the end it DID say he died because of steroids. so wheres the problem? Ashburn247 (talk) 03:31, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I think the problem was that it was misleading. Saying he died using steroids makes it sound like he died with pills in his stomach, or a needle still sticking in a muscle, or whatever (I apologize if that sounds too graphic), when in reality he died from complications from steroid abuse.  Someone can die as a result of drug use, but not die using the drug (like an overdose).  For instance, let's say that there's a person whose body was so totaled as a result of cocainism that they suffered a fatal heart attack a couple years after cleaning up.  They didn't die using cocaine, but they did die because of cocaine use.  Likewise, if a former heroin addict dies of AIDS after contracting HIV through sharing needles, they didn't die using heroin, but they did die because of heroin abuse. Evernut (talk) 16:02, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

SEC Bias
I don't know that ESPN negatively covers SEC teams, it's almost impossible to do these days since the SEC is so dominant. Maybe this section should be amended or removed? --Jessecurry (talk) 15:21, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

I just removed it. The link that was there (SEC TV & radio contracts) shows that ESPN now has a contract with the network, so it's redundant. They have an SEC game on every Saturday night now, so I don't see any bias. Beebs5000 (talk) 04:20, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
 * It's not bias per se. It's called conflict of interest, this was addressed by the ESPN ombudsman but not mentioned anywhere in this article. It needs to be included somewhere.Kcchief915 (talk) 21:39, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

College Football Monopoly
I think we should include the fact that ESPN certainly has a conflict of interest (with both the Longhorn network, and their TV deals with the SEC). Even more glaring is the fact that ESPN owns the rights to 29 of the 35 College Football Bowl games. This gives them incredible leverage over the BCS and entire College Football Bowl Season. ESPN essentially has a monopoly on the broadcast of college football in this country, which has been pointed out repeatedly: http://bleacherreport.com/articles/963963-espn-owns-the-college-football-bowls-on-tv-a-look-at-who-is-calling-which-games

I would like to add this information to a section of this article. Thoughts? Scotsworth —Preceding undated comment added 16:40, 19 January 2012 (UTC).

NHL Coverage
I think the lack of NHL coverage should be discussed. I am a big hockey fan, but looking for coverage of an NHL game on ESPN is like trying to find water on the sun. I was surprised this hasn't been talked about in this article already. The NHL is a huge league, with just as many teams as the NBA and MLB, but gets very little, if any coverage.

P.S. This is the first comment I have ever posted on Wiki, so if I didn't do it right or missed a step, I apologize, and welcome any advice on how to write better comments in the future.Supergoalie1617 (talk) 20:04, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

I was going to mention this — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.31.102.206 (talk) 05:31, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

Honestly I think the lack of a section says it all: ESPN's coverage of hockey is so damn lacking it doesn't even warrant a section. And it's not as if there have not been articles about this. 108.39.173.73 (talk) 05:32, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

more
Brian Kinchen and Ron Franklin said nothing wrong and shouldn't even had to apologize.real humans weren't offended by what they said,only babies were.What a society —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.90.31.227 (talk) 05:25, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

NPOV
I had to nominate this. Clearly the article is showing bias throughout the article, and needs to brought into a more wikified format. Chaz (talk) 01:49, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Agreed. I fixed one of the most egregious examples I found, but this article needs to be combed through thoroughly.  --Muboshgu (talk) 03:16, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

I enjoy tennis and am appalled how the commentators cover it; especially Mary Carillo. I believe commentators should keep their personal biases off camera. American successful tennis players are few and the next set of up and coming ones do not appear to be of history making quality. The only Americans currently on tour winning anything are Serena and Venus Williams. They receive mostly negative evaluations from Mary Carillo, even when they win. Now Patrick McEnroe, who was no great tennis player, demeans Serena Williams in his book; blatantly missing in his analysis was his own brother's antics on court. These two aforementioned commentators having not had sucessful careers should not be assessing tennis through their obviously biased minds. Both need not work for ESPN nor NBC to win these companies back their credibility. Also, the message board pages are horrendous. The negative and biased statements are being monitored by less than quality individuals who wield their power to ban discussions they blatantly show an opposite opinion of. The views which are allowed to stay and fester prove that. ESPN is turning and tuning a lot of sports fans off. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sershortie (talk • contribs) 16:13, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

"Integration of ABC Sports"?
As a part of the NPOV debate, is this section even necessary? ABC Sports merging with ESPN doesn't seem like a bad thing to me, and the only evidence that there is criticism is that some dinosaurs of the industry are opposed to change. That'll happen no matter what the change is. This section should either be removed, expanded to better explain why there may be criticism with the integration, and/or balanced with comments on why this may be a good thing. --Muboshgu (talk) 12:04, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Here's what's wrong with the "ESPN on ABC" concept: The reasons why people around here care about ABC Sports once again using their own graphics, music, announcers, etc.:
 * ABC Sports is a much more established and prestigious brand than ESPN. Lets face it, would you take the brand that names like Al Michaels, Jim McKay, Keith Jackson, Howard Cosell, and Chris Schenkel worked for or the brand that first gave notice to Chris Berman, Kenny Mayne, and Stuart Scott among others?
 * ESPN and/or Disney is already oversaturating their brand by having the same look (ESPN2 and even ESPN Classic are other examples). Unfortunately, Disney doesn't really view sportscasting on ABC as a high priority at the moment (hence, why things feel so unimaginative and cheap).
 * Having over-the-air games with full ESPN branding in the end, ruins the whole purpose or point of having to subscribe to get the ESPN cable network. It's as if, ABC is offering folks a free preview of what a full plate of ESPN stuff has to offer.  ABC is also doing the same thing with their Saturday morning programming, which is composed of little more than recycled Disney Channel shows like Hannah Montana.
 * It really makes ABC look bush league in comparison to the other major networks if they're using a cable arm to completely produce their sports programming.

If I were ESPN, I would break things down in so that every outlet has serves a very distinctive purpose. For example, ABC Sports would be the "Yellow Network" (meaning that it would mostly have a yellow color scheme), ESPN would be the "Red Network", ESPN2 would be the "Blue Network", ESPNNews would be the "Purple Network", ESPNU would be the "Orange Network", etc. Part of ESPN's problem right now (besides trying to blur the lines between serious journalism and tabloids/show business) is that they have too much of a homoginized look. The main problem isn't the idea of ABC and ESPN working together on sports coverage per se. It's what I would consider to be the sheer arrogance of those in charge at the moment, to make you want to believe that "ESPN has gotten so big that they're airing games on a major TV network now!" When you're presenting a sporting event on a broadcast network like ABC, NBC, CBS or FOX, you need to think beyond the concentrated demographic of diehard sports fans (which is a given in terms of attraction to what's still a niche cable channel like ESPN anyway). This to me, is further proof that the "ESPN on ABC" brand doesn't carry a whole lot of logic.

The whole "ESPN on ABC"/ABC Sports scenerio is in a way, like the New Coke saga. The people in charge felt that the formula needed to be updated in order to I suppose, more "in the now" or hip. But instead, it came across as a watered down version of what worked in the past. Diehard fans I feel, don't want the idea that ESPN is surperior than whatever worked before shoved in their faces. To me, the people in charge right now are discrediting and discounting those who came before them. I for one, don't like the fact that Disney is seemingly pretending that sports on ABC pre say, 1996 (when they bought the network) or 2006 (when the branding change was officially made) doesn't matter to them. I still think if smarter and less self-serving people were in charge, that the ABC Sports identity could be revived (I'm that optimistic) sometime down the line.

ABC also seriously needs to treat their current sports telecasts more like a "must see event" (much in the same way that NBC and CBS had before them) rather than purely time-filler bought and paid for by the Four Letter Network. Also, casual viewers, who see things on face value, might be a bit confused over the sports that Disney currently pays rights fees over. In other words, if ESPN airs Major League Baseball, then why can't ABC air baseball too for instance? Why does ESPN have 3/4s of the BCS while ABC has the rights to the Rose Bowl? Not to mention that when highlights of said ESPN on ABC games are rebroadcast, the black ABC watermark, that's on the bottom right side of the screen isn't there. Thus, people who hadn't seen the game live are likely to instantly assume that the game was first broadcast on ESPN, not ABC (thus, it's kind of counterproductive).

TMC1982 (talk) 04:12 p.m., 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Jemele Hill
Nothing about Jemele Hill? She has faced controversy more than a few times, either for playing the race card in her columns, or comparing cheering for the Boston Celtics to cheering for Adolf Hitler. Zipster (talk) 21:34, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Too much!
This is ridiculous! I counted 10-15 sections that flat out do not belong. "While some have been critical of Gray for being abrasive in interviews, others have also criticized him for giving soft interviews." That's blogger criticism, not a "controversy". Just cause MLK was called "Martin Luther Coon King Jr." doesn't mean we enshrine the slip-of-the-tongue here. I'm going to go through and remove the sections that don't belong. If necessary, they can be re-added to the person's article. This one's just way too long.  Nolelover  It's football season!  17:48, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Just because you personally think that "they don't belong" doesn't mean that they still aren't remotely controversial (and what exactly should the criteria be for you) or ergregous. You don't think that somebody saying "Martin Luther Coon..." isn't technically or by default, controversial even though said announcer made a slip-of-the-tounge (it was still a fairly big deal)! The fact of the matter is, whether it's truthful or not, ESPN's personalities dating back to at least, the early 1990s, have been involved in some sort of scandal (such as sexual harrassment or other typical "frat boy" antics) or faced harsh criticism for whatever the reasons from the media (bloggers count). BornonJune8 (talk) 02:58 p.m., 18 May 2011 (UTC)

ESPN Opinion=Fact?
I just wanted to run this up the flagpole and see if anyone saluted. Does it seem like ESPN reporters present their own personal opinions as undisputable facts? Here's what I mean. After the Dallas Mavericks won the 2010-2011 NBA Championship, I heard some guy (On Baseball Tonight, of all shows) claim, "No one outside of Miami wanted the Heat to win." Earlier, when the NBA playoffs started, a man was talking about the Heat on a show and his female co-anchor practically snapped, "The only thing anyone will remember about this season is that the Cavaliers won a game against the Heat!" Isn't that like saying the only thing people would remember about the 1975 Major League Baseball season is that New York Yankees won a game against the Boston Red Sox? This same reporter earlier said she wanted to spike a player's drinking water with laxatives. How could any of these three incidents possibly be considered professional, unbiased, accurate reporting? There are already a couple incidents mentioned in the article (like that guy claiming everyone would remember where they were when Danica Patrick took the lead that time, and Rush Limbaugh claiming people only talked about Donovan McNabb's achievements because he was black), but I know that this can't be put into the article unless enough outside sources bring up this issue. Evernut (talk) 16:08, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree Evernut. If we can find sources that share the same opinion, I support adding them. — X96lee15 (talk) 16:40, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks, X96lee15. You know, looking through the article again, there are more examples included that support this than I remembered.  In addition to sources (or until sources are found, either way), someone could add an introduction to the Controversies/Criticisms involving ESPN Personalities section saying something like, "ESPN personalities have been criticized for several reasons, including offensive remarks, the stating of opinions as fact, and allegations of sexual harassment" and let the information contained in that section back up the statement. By the way, the woman I mentioned was Michelle Beadle from SportsNation.  I don't know who the man on Baseball Tonight was, but it sounded like Michael Wilbon (If so, he must've been a guest commentator or something). I thought I'd include the names so it didn't seem like I was making incidents up. Evernut (talk) 22:10, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

NPOV problems
This article has pretty severe WP:NPOV problems. Dozens of uncited and nebulous claims and statements without context throughout the article. I've gone through half of it and tagged several statements that needed sources, and removed some pretty blatant non-neutral examples. The article needs to be thoroughly examined.  Falcon8765  (T ALK ) 23:37, 25 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Even though the original post was made in 2011, I can see what you mean because there are still some questionable and non-NPOV comments. The Stuart Scott section reads, "But most observers see it [his use of slang and informal speech] as contrived, overwrought faux-hipness with nothing more than a marketing-inspired persona."  Really?  "Most observers" think that?  What, did someone survey every ESPN viewer? Evernut (talk) 20:43, 26 July 2015 (UTC)
 * The article has a lot of good content and needs to have some if it integrated into a summary on main. IF the source doesn't support assertion regarding Scott, then delete it. Thanks for your interest in the page. It needs a lot of work. --JumpLike23 (talk) 20:56, 26 July 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree that this is a fascinating article that still needs some fixing up, and I appreciate the feedback. I just altered the section in question to make it non-NPOV. As of this moment it says, "His critics, however, see it as contrived, overwrought faux-hipness with nothing more than a marketing-inspired persona." This addresses the criticism that some people had without making sweeping generalizations or biased wording. There was no source given for the original sentence, so it seems that someone, for whatever reason, decided to make it seem like Stuart Scott against The World.  Rest in peace, Scott. Evernut (talk) 17:00, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

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Still many POV issues
This article, despite its problems being raised for years now, is still grossly filled with NPOV and BLP violations. As far as I can tell, the article is just a dumping ground for every negative op-ed about an ESPN employee ever published. If anyone even remotely connected with ESPN has a single negative thing said (or even suspected) about them, it seems they're fair game for their own section in this article. See Dick Vitale's section. A single reference to one retired coach accusing Vitale of Duke bias, and then the rest of the section is completely unsubstantiated weasels. Wow. How horrible of Mr. Vitale, ESPN should be ashamed. As far as I'm concerned, the entire article needs to be re-written from scratch, and without the blatant rap sheet format. Lizard (talk) 05:13, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
 * First of all, the dedicated sections for individuals need to go. All of them. They're blatantly WP:UNDUE. This isn't a List of ESPN employees who have ever received criticism. It's an article for criticism of the company itself. If this info belongs anywhere, it's on those individuals' own articles. Lizard  (talk) 19:41, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I don't know that all of them should go. The ones that deal directly or indirectly with a person on air are relevant. I'd need to look at it closer to see what I think belongs, but most of it doesn't. – Muboshgu (talk) 19:46, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Well, I decided to take a drastic measure given how long the article has been neglected. Per WP:BLP, it's best that contentious info is removed ASAP rather than remaining there until it's decided what should be done with it. Lizard  (talk) 19:52, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
 * No argument from me on that. I will look back at what was deleted, though, and see if any should be readded. At the least, those things may merit being on the articles of the people mentioned, in case it's not already. – Muboshgu (talk) 22:09, 19 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Alright. I do think there was an exaggerated list of criticism to ESPN employees (I don't think Jemele Hill's or Dave O'Brien's controversial remarks are remembered by anyone without reading Wikipedia, for example), but... there are certain cases in which ESPN's personalities compromised the network's interests or integrity. Keith Olbermann crashed against NCAA, MLB and NFL in his show, Bill Simmons said what he felt recklessly and gave troubles to ESPN for that, and Curt Schilling was backed despite showing a very irresponsible and unprofessional behavior (there were opinions saying he was trying to make ESPN fire him) at difference of for example Mike Ditka (you people get me?). I think when ESPN staff's wrongdoings are outstanding enough to revolve sports media world (they are several cases) they should be related with ESPN in Wikipedia. On the other hand, that Dick Vitale case could be rewritten in a section pointed ESPN bias in favor of ACC in basketball and SEC in football (that's true and people know it!). Please, let's weight this discussion name by name. It's supposed how WP:BRD works, isn't it? (A WP:RFC might help). Leo Bonilla (talk) 21:59, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
 * The ACC basketball section actually exists. Leo Bonilla (talk) 22:09, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Sorry for the late reply. We could go back and look at the removed material and comb through it. I think first and foremost, everything should be cited to the highest possible quality sources. Anything sourced only to blogs (Deadspin, SB Nation, etc.) needs to go. If that's our standard for inclusion, this article could reach half a million bytes. Stick to the newspapers of record: NY Times, WA Post, LA Times, USA Today (not their "For The Win" blog), Chicago Tribune, etc. The next highest quality would be the sports sites: ESPN.com, CBSSports.com, FOXSports.com, etc. Lizard  (talk) 23:49, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

NHL Coverage?
No mention of ESPN's NHL coverage?? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Vilgotaan (talk • contribs) 15:41, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

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6048 Sports
Someone from the same IP address keeps adding that site into the article. I personally don't believe that this site is notable enough to be included in the article. Anyone here has any thoughts on the matter? LouisVuittonDevil17 (talk) 01:06, 1 May 2020 (UTC)