1. Colin Cowherd
Colin Cowherd once said that if he’s walking through an airport on his way to a meeting (Colin apparently holds all of his meetings in airports, like a normal ESPN analyst should), and there’s a baseball game on the TV (You know, those TVs that line airports built for Colin Cowherd’s meetings), he will only stop to watch if Alex Rodriguez is at bat. No other baseball player on any team, in any league, on any continent, is worth Colin Cowherd’s time.
This is just one of the trillions of stupid things Colin Cowherd has said. He was the guy to which Joe Buck explained he’s more apt to watch “The Bachelorette” than a baseball game, and Colin thought this was a good point. Colin works for ESPN, by the way. He gets paid.
Not only that, but he’s mistaken himself for a comedian. One segment on Sports Nation features him doing what I guess is an impression of Ron Burgundy, but just sounds like he’s choking to death on peanut butter. Which he always does, so it’s a terrible impression. This whole portion is him saying “I think Will Ferrell is so funny, that I’m going to unabashedly steal one of his ideas. And not only that, I’m so utterly talentless that I’m going to ruin the character in its entirety by not only soiling its original image, but forever linking it to myself.”
This man pulls down a paycheck for this bullshit. He gets money to be a brainless clown with zero intelligence every day.
Every day.
Also, he’s a classless thief.
2. The Concept
You know those internet polls some websites do? Wait, we do them here. But you know how on other sites, more than 11 people will vote over the course of a month? Okay, so that… but a TV show. Hosted by Colin Cowherd.
This is a show with content that could be literally thrown together 15 minutes before it airs. Hell, make it five. And that’s if they’re not just making all these numbers up. What is a pitch meeting like? 20 “writers” shouting numbers at a producer with a chalkboard?
Now, I don’t want to accuse anybody of fraud, more than I just did like a second ago, but even if all of these statistics are the results of tireless, exhausting research by a staff of producers, writers, fact checkers, and interns, the real question is this: Who gives a shit?
Is it not enough that our sports programming is simply anywhere from 2-4 guys in suits who probably smell like toothpaste screaming at/chuckling with each other? At least they are discussing things that are happening and offering to filter it through years of experience in the industry.
All Sports Nation does is tell us what our lowly idiot compatriots in the trenches think. I know what they think, we’re all surrounded by each other. I could yell out my window and get some opinions and accomplish the same thing. But not in my neighborhood, of course. The last thing you want to do is inadvertently assemble the crackheads into a mob by getting their attention with shouting.
3. Too much like Nickelodeon
You’re watching Pardon the Interruption. It’s okay. Wilbon says something to indicate he’s very pleased with himself, then verbally massages Tiger Woods and Lebron James. Tony Kornheiser says something about his kids or Canada, then makes a joke about not being allowed to take his shirt off at the beach.
“Oh, Tony. You’re so self-deprecating. That’s why I’m so comfortable with you!”
And then he is slimed while 30,000 screaming tweens think that it is awesome.
I am waiting for the air of Sports Nation to be filled with buzzes and honks and NERF toy giveaways. The set is flying with colors, the camera is zooming in and out everywhere, there’s people laughing like idiots in the background, poppy graphics appear on screen. This is a summer afternoon in 1995, and I’m eating peanut butter and jelly while wishing I had the newest Super Soaker model, and also I’m must be at a friend’s house because we didn’t get cable until I was in high school.
If you put Sports Nation on in a room full of kids, they would be on the floor laughing riotously at the onscreen antics of the SN crew while subliminally manipulated into begging their parents for Gak.
4. It’s not really about sports
One of today’s polls was “What return are you more excited for, Brett Favre or ‘Mad Men?'” The fact that this wound up being heavily in favor of Favre is pretty disgusting, and not just because I’m a jilted Packers fan. But that’s besides the point. What a time wasting, shallow concept for a vote. And that’s before you even care what the result is, if you ever do.
“Mad Men,” while responsible for my Christa Hendricks fixation and in turn my desire to become Roger Sterling, has nothing to do with sports. Sure, they probably share demographics. But this just makes Sports Nation into more of an alien parasite, slowly sprawling into more and more genres to disguise its lack of meaningful content.
In another instance–I forget what the vote was–but they were choosing between somebody and Hannibal from the A*Team. Colin’s answer was “Hannibal, because I’m a big fan of Hannibal Lector.” And Hannibal Lector had nothing to do with anything. Colin went out of his way to make some big, dumb argument with words in it and then in the end, explained his reasoning was because of some deus ex machina opinion of a person who is 1.) not real and 2.) completely irrelevant.
Wait… this one is just about Colin Cowherd again.
5. They do shit like this