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ESPN Or Versus: Kinda Like A John Hughes Movie
by Mike Chen on 04/06/09 at 12:56 PM ET
Comments (13)
Today’s mega-post references two of my favorites: Greg Wyshynski of Puck Daddy and Steve Lepore of Puck The Media. Steve struck gold with a candid interview with ex-ESPN/current-Versus announcer Jack Edwards. As a follow up, Greg made this astute point:
The point isn’t that these people don’t do quality work; it’s that their network is training hockey fans to look elsewhere. It’s a vicious circle: Hockey fans don’t watch ESPN or visit ESPN.com for news because ESPN doesn’t give them what they want; ESPN sees those numbers, and decides no one is intersted in hockey; they cut back coverage, leading to more fans becoming disenfranchised.
Greg’s totally right. Since the NHL disappeared from ESPN, I hardly watch the channel except during the MLB playoffs. I’ll be watching it in two-week spurts now that they’ve the tennis Grand Slam tournaments too, but other than that, they don’t broadcast anything that I care about. And for my online visits, I check ESPN once a week and that’s just for John Buccigross’ column.
I’m guessing many hockey fans are like me when it comes to their online activity. For scores and updates, it’s either TSN or Yahoo (mostly Yahoo because their interface loads faster); for breaking news, it’s the Empire here at Kukla; for rumors, it’s Spector’s; and for opinion, I grab the local headlines via Illegal Curve or one of my favorite bloggers. I feel no need to visit ESPN.com anymore. For hockey, it’s too sparse, and for everything else, it’s too cluttered.
This is the thing about ESPN and Versus. Consider it like a school popularity contest in a John Hughes movie.
ESPN is the pretty and popular homecoming queen—she might pretend to pay attention to you but you’re an afterthought that disappears from her vacuous brain after five seconds. Versus is like the cute but quiet indie rock chick—once you get to know her, you see how cool and devoted she really is, and she has an awesome Joy Division t-shirt. The homecoming queen might elevate your school popularity but the indie rock girl understands you and wants to go listen to rare Smiths b-sides together.
So then who you pursue really depends on your goal. ESPN raises overall awareness of the league to Joe Sportsfan but puts it tenth on the priority list. Versus allots a pretty good amount of time to the league, especially during the playoffs when it essentially becomes the NHL channel (not the NHL Network) for two months.
I would think that in a perfect world, you get a joint-rights deal with Versus and ESPN. One game a week on ESPN while maintaining the current Versus/NBC package. A deal like that opens up the door for cross-promotion and SportsCenter placement on ESPN, raising awareness while giving ESPN some filler programming and indirectly sending a few eyeballs over to Versus. Since ESPN is trying to keep Versus from gaining any traction in terms of competition, I doubt that’d ever happen.
For now, I’ll agree with Jack Edwards’ assessment:
So, for those of you that hope that hockey gets back on ESPN, that’s what you’re gonna’ get. That’s where it belongs in ESPN’s hierarchy, because there are some bozos sitting in the accounting department in a bunker in Burbank, California running Disney, who look at the numbers and completely ignore the passion of hockey fans.
Me? I’m ok with Versus/NHL Network/Center Ice/blogosphere—the hockey equivalent of my indie rock girl in the Joy Division shirt (hey, I married someone like that and we played Love Will Tear Us Apart at our wedding).
Filed in: NHL | Mike Chen's Hockey Blog | Permalink
Tags: ESPN, Music, Versus,
Comments
Me? I’m ok with Versus/NHL Network/Center Ice/blogosphere—the hockey equivalent of my indie rock girl in the Joy Division shirt (hey, I married someone like that and we played Love Will Tear Us Apart at our wedding).
You’re f*cking hip, Mike. Awesome.
Admittedly, I do not have the money to fork up for either satTV or digital cable to get NHLN and NHLCI but I’m currently okay with the current arrangement I have here in Las Vegas with Cox Communications. If Versus, FSPrime, or FSW don’t have any games on at all, I can always go to the local casinos’ sportsbook and bars to watch the games. I’m quite satisfied with what’s available at the moment.
However, I’m not exactly pining for the NHL’s return to ESPN neither. As admirable as Disney is as a company, they’re still a business watching their bottomline. I do miss Gary Thorne’s PBP, though.
Posted by SYF from a "Bron-Y-Aur Stomp" on 04/06/09 at 02:46 PM ET
Perhaps the closest VERSUS and the word “joy” have ever co-existed.
Thanks for the kind words, but I’d add this: Versus continues to blow its chance to add more coverage of the NHL, to give hockey fans that have put the network on the map (in a post-Lance Armstrong sports world) the coverage they desire.
I want to see more from them, before being happy with the way of the current world.
Posted by Greg Wyshynski from DC on 04/06/09 at 03:26 PM ET
I agree with Greg W. Why can’t Versus have a more flexible and complete coverage package? Aside from the post-game NHL coverage, why not a twice a week NHL2Nite style program (or even nightly!!)? Also, why can’t they expand their coverage to show a Thursday night game when its a marquee matchup? Given that Crosby and Ovechkin (rightly or wrongly) are the two biggest “stars” in the sport, how can you not televise their matchups? Can you imagine a Kobe-Lebron game not being televised nationally? I don’t mind Versus coverage each night, but for a network that considers the NHL their big fish, they could do an awful lot more to cover it.
ESPN just plain pisses me off. I would really prefer Versus get better coverage because I don’t want to watch ESPN. I’m offended by the jerks on their network that ridicule hockey because its not football. I find it funny that despite their tireless promotion of the NBA and MLB, at any given game of those two sports the arena or ballpark are half empty. I hate sitting through 29 minutes of basketball coverage for 1 minute of hockey coverage on Sportscenter (and thats before the MLB season starts!).
As someone that would have a hard time paying for the NHL network (plus my wife would KILL me), I really, really want Versus to cover the sport more completely.
Posted by dip from philly on 04/06/09 at 08:01 PM ET
That’s right on point, Mike. In high school, the morning Sportscenter was part of my daily routine. Now? I’d rather have on re-runs of Married with Children in the background while I brush my teeth, with only very few exceptions (e.g. NCAA tourney).
I do agree with the sentiment that Versus is failing to seize a big opportunity. Just because the indie rock girl will listen to B-sides with you doesn’t mean a few skirts and a lil eyeliner wouldn’t do some good. There’s a pretty face under there, show it! More coverage, Versus!
Posted by Ruben on 04/07/09 at 09:59 AM ET
The problem I see with this setup is that while Versus gives more attention to the NHL than ESPN ever would, they don’t act like it during the actual games. What I mean is, rather than understanding that they’re broadcasting to hockey fans who have sought them out on the dial and who know how hockey is played, they make believe that their audience perpetually consists of new, non-hockey fans who don’t know anything about the game and who just tuned in. I’m CONSTANTLY hearing things like “In case you just joined us…” during the 3rd period, or “both teams are at full strength, 5-on-5”, or “the Capitals are in their home red sweaters”. My point is, they keep repeating BASIC INFO over and over. If VS really does understand us like a hip indie girl, why don’t they act like it?
(And for the record, my wife and I played Pulp for our wedding song.)
Posted by dave in Rocha on 04/07/09 at 01:50 PM ET
(And for the record, my wife and I played Pulp for our wedding song.)
Nice! Which song? Our first dance was Pulp too—Something Changed. We closed out the night with There Is A Light That Never Goes Out. The Joy Division was one of our mandatory songs in the middle of the evening, though it helped that our wedding DJ doubled as a new wave club DJ.
Posted by Mike Chen on 04/07/09 at 02:21 PM ET
Scary, ours was “Something Changed” as well. Then again I’m not sure if there are any other Pulp songs that would be appropriate to play in front of your parents, let alone small kids. I guess “Trees” would be ok, but completely out of place at a wedding (and hard to dance to).
One of my favourite memories is when one of my new brothers-in-law started doing THE Safety Dance as soon as the DJ started playing it. Priceless!
Posted by dave in Rocha on 04/07/09 at 03:27 PM ET
Little Girl With Blue Eyes is slow-danceable and has great shock value. 
Posted by Mike Chen on 04/07/09 at 04:02 PM ET
I’ll take the cool indie chick any day. Unfortunately, I think the cool indie chick is fooling around with the hunting and fishing guy that always wears camouflage pants. How else to explain all the hours of outdoors shows without giving us a really good hockey show? Either that or she’s seeing the mixed martial arts guy, but we won’t get into that.
ESPN ceased to exist a long time ago for me. I get all my news from the NHL Network and Fox Sports. Online, it’s Kukla’s Korner every time.
Versus is better than it was at the start, but it still has a long way to go.
Posted by West from Pittsburgh on 04/08/09 at 11:22 AM ET
Thanks for the kind words, but I’d add this: Versus continues to blow its chance to add more coverage of the NHL, to give hockey fans that have put the network on the map (in a post-Lance Armstrong sports world) the coverage they desire.ESPN, For this week, I thought I would check out the Game 3 box score and provide observations on each player. Here they are in uniform number order: Detroit Red Wings Nicklas Lidstrom: Played 26:40 and didn’t get a shot on goal. I think he will be more assertive in Game 4. It was his third game in four nights and he might have been pacing himself a bit. Lidstrom…
Posted by Tuxedo on 06/10/09 at 06:20 PM ET
I think the cool indie chick is fooling around with the hunting and fishing guy that always wears camouflage pants.
Posted by Formal Wear on 08/12/09 at 06:44 AM ET
I have to admit, my wedding was nothing new, as a matter of fact, we tried to make it older. Our first dance was to Nevertheless, that was a number one hit way back in the 30’s.
complete tuxedos
Posted by complete tuxedos on 10/19/09 at 11:00 PM ET
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To me, the few extra games a week on the NHL Network make a huge difference, not to mention that On the Fly allows me to see the nightly highlights when I want to see them, without a whole lot of guessing. Back before ESPN ditched NHL2Nite, their scheduling algorithm for it apparently involved a random number generator, making it inevitable that even the loyalest of the loyal watchers wouldn’t watch.
Posted by af on 04/06/09 at 01:24 PM ET