ESPN throws a degrading Hail Mary with College Game Day in Manhattan

There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. – from Hamlet

ESPN made a severe miscalculation and it’s chucking a Hail Mary to remedy the rolling chaos currently trickling down the one-time sports giant.

Ratings have dropped nine percent since July of 2017 and advertising dollars are falling as well.

What can the network do to dress its wounds?

Record ratings have graced the national news networks with the main catalyst being the man in the oval office and his antics. It’s common to hop on Twitter and have a civil debate or raging argument over what the President is doing, has been doing, isn’t doing, et cetera.

ESPN is trying to imitate what the major news networks have been doing all along; mostly creating political controversy in the sports world in hopes of renewing lost viewers.

The polarizing Colin Kaepernick debate and obsession is getting stale, but it’s still a major topic on social media. It’s politically driven and generates tons of difference from the viewing masses. ESPN has beaten this dead horse into the ground and more, but continues to regurgitate the same material, i.e. “Is he being blackballed?” or “Is he really any good?”

By doing so, viewers are tuning elsewhere because they’re sick of the same, circular argument.

ESPN’s Jemele Hill claimed the President to be a “white supremacist,” setting Twitter into a political blitzkrieg. The result was an apology to her employer and outrage elsewhere. Discussions about her job and her right to free speech became the overwhelming focus.

I’m not saying that what she did was forced for ratings, but it was forced. Was it a ploy to generate reviewers to her declining SportsCenter SC6 show?

So did politics, mixed with sports, remedy the bleeding company?

Disney’s shares are down 0.6%, and the mass media and entertainment conglomerate is currently in negotiations with Altice, USA, a New York-based cable company which claims 4.9 million customers, according to Altice’s website. If a mutual agreement isn’t made by September 30^th, ABC, ESPN and other Disney-owned programming are going to be blacked out in the New York tri-state area.

ESPN’s widely popular college pregame show, College Game Day, is in Manhattan this week over the likes of Mississippi State v Georgia and TCU v Oklahoma State – all of which are top-20 teams.

I wonder why Game Day decided to go to Manhattan, a city without a football team?

While New York City is engaging and filled with diverse cultures and interesting sites, it’s not a place for college football. Northerners don’t care about college football as much as others do across the United States.

College sports cater to small-town America; places like Ann Arbor, Eugene, South Bend, Gainesville, Tulsa, Tuscaloosa, and Fort Worth. Setting Game Day up in Manhattan feels contrived and like a cash grab in the US’s biggest market.

Losing tons of money makes one desperate.

But, most importantly, it feels like Disney and ESPN are placating to Altice and begging for a deal.

ESPN tried something new by entertaining the political market and it backfired greatly by agitating those who tune in solely for sports, and now it’s trying to rectify itself by pandering to a company which may cut ties with the World Wide Leader sooner rather than later.

It won’t be long before the 4-Letter consumes itself. This ball is a duck and no one’s coming down with it.