Dear ESPN,
It was bound to happen, like MTV before you, you have decided that you don’t just need to report on news, but need to make some headlines yourself.
You want to be cool, I get it.
First you signed up Rick Reilly for his attention whore monthly…er weekly…coloumn. Yeah everyone wants to be cool and edgy, look at how well Keith Olberman has done for himself. Er…by “well” I mean he can’t beat Bill O’Reilly in any ratings. It’s like people are saying…yeah we don’t really care for Bill O’Reilly but we kind of hate Keith Olberman…But warnings be damned you wanted to come out with “The Body Issue”. For the record I used to really like Rick Reilly before he became all preachy and started dissing everyone and everything. I wish he would just go back to writing those stories that make you realize why you love sports, not his “Take that Michael Jordan” crap he wrote. MJ’s an ass…we get it Rick. We think you’re and ass too – so let’s just drop this whole who’s an ass thing!
Anyway…
Maybe I’m old school but I like my sports magazines for 2 reasons, reading about sports…and the girls that show up in ads and in some cases the swimsuit issue. I don’t read my sports magazines for shirtless (or naked) dudes. I thought you knew me ESPN…I mean you hired Erin Andrews and a host of other hot sideline reporters throughout the years. It’s my fault – I should have seen this coming. You did hire Jessie “the Bachelor” Palmer – I just thought you liked him for his football mind…not his football body.
Perhaps you whiffed on who your audience is – but I’m thinking guys like me more than likely buy sports mags for the same reason, and you used to know us. I really have no idea WHY you want to do this, but I can tell you I for one canceled my subscription to ESPN the magazine after hearing about this issue. To be honest it was a long time coming and I really didn’t care for the Mag that much anymore…this was just kind of my push to make the call and do it. There’s nothing you can really say or do to stop me from doing this – ESPN I think our whole relationship is getting kind of played out.
Anyway…here’s the point ESPN – guys don’t buy or subscribe to sports magazines for naked dudes. In fact the vast majority of your subscribers feel fairly uncomfortable about having that magazine on the coffee table and having a young lady come over and flip open to a page of a naked dude. “So this is what you read…?” The odds of you scoring that night go wayyyyy down. Sure you used to get in the way of me scoring, but that was only because you had a great game on – not because your magazine is making babes question what team I’m playing for!
Shoot, can you imagine if Mom came over and saw that? That’s like a million times worse than a playboy and Mom will regret ever yelling at me after having found my secret stash of porn.
ESPN you have always kind of made me uncomfortable with some of your “reporting” that told the story that you wanted me to hear, and when the reporting turned out to be way off OR the predictions/bashings were way off they just ignored it and moved on. I thought that was something that happens with every relationship, but I learned I was wrong.
I don’t get you any more ESPN…mostly because I canceled my subscription to your magazine – and I’ve started to see other networks. Comcast Sportsnet is doing a great job, sure they have that “Monsters in the Morning” show that was basically created by a 3 time felon/dude who declared bankruptcy for financial gain…but we all make SOME bad choices (Remember when you let Steven A Smith have his own show?)
So I guess this is good bye. Sure I’ll still see you around the tube and I’ll stop by and check out a game or 2, but I don’t think we can call ourselves “together” anymore.
The Nooge
October 7th, 2009 at 7:10 pm
yeah…i agree with you…
October 10th, 2009 at 10:26 pm
ESPN? Who watches or reads the magazine anymore? I thought I was the only one with this opinion. Glad to see there are others. Good article that nails it!