Why Is ESPN Obsessed With Tim Tebow?
Christian Science Monitor
Tim Tebow has always drawn cheering crowds–of journalists. And that’s the problem.
Deadspin has a massive takedown on ESPN’s obsession with Tebow, the former Heisman Trophy winner and current New York Jets backup quarterback, titled “How ESPN Ditched Journalism And Followed Skip Bayless To The Bottom: A Tim Tebow Story.”
In this story, John Koblin goes long form, spending 3,500 words analyzing how ESPN has devoted itself to its Tebow obsession at the cost of doing actual sports journalism. As Koblin notes, “The story of how ESPN fell in love with Tim Tebow is really the story of a breakup, between ESPN and the business of reporting the news.”
For those unfamiliar with ESPN’s blanket coverage, some examples are provided:
This helps explain why, over the summer, ESPN dispatched veteran reporter Sal Paolantonio and a crew to cover Jets camp as if it were the run-up to the Super Bowl. (“ESPN embarrassed themselves,” Dan Patrick, who spent 18 years in Bristol, said of ESPN’s flood-the-zone coverage in Florham Park.) This helps explain why ESPN2′s First Take referred to Tim Tebow more than seven dozen times in late May even though there was absolutely no Tebow news to report on. This helps explain why SportsCenter covered Tim Tebow’s 25th birthday like a moon landing. This helps explain why it seemed perfectly reasonable to a SportsCenter anchor to ask in-studio guest Liam Neeson whether Tim Tebow should be the Jets’ starting quarterback even though Liam Neeson had no clue what he was talking about. This helps explain how ESPN wound up breaking Tim Tebow news to, yes, Tim Tebow.
But the piece goes on to describe how ESPN’s fixation began when it discovered that a debate show on ESPN2 (hosted by Skip Bayless from the article’s title) was starting to surge in the rating– with constant debates about the polarizing quarterback who combined strong Christian faith with indifferent throwing mechanics. The result was that the entire ESPN family of networks—which bills itself accurately as “the worldwide leader in sports”—became Tebow-obsessed. The problem is that the show dragged its entire newsroom with it.
ESPN became the worldwide leader by establishing itself as the source for sports news. In many cases, ESPN would cover sporting events better than its competitors even when it wasn’t broadcasting the game . Viewers could get the pregame on ESPN, flip channels for the main event and then go back for postgame coverage on ESPN.
However ESPN has become a monopoly, slow and stodgy. The competition that it was afraid of wasn’t from NBC, or CBS or Fox, it was from ESPN2. The result is that ESPN now ignores many significant sporting events—the NHL gets nary a peep—and sports reporting is ignored for ease of stirring controversy instead.
The problem is that Tebow may be great for ratings now, but there’s a longterm cost. The saturation Tebow coverage undermines its credibility and opens the door for competitors. Worldwide leaders of any stripe are always vulnerable. After all, it wasn’t that long ago that Sports Illustrated was “the worldwide leader in sports.”
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