ESPN Los Angeles? I Give It 6 Months Before It’s ESPN Oakland
ESPN recently caused a bit of a stir in the concurrent hemispheres of the sports and internet worlds by devoting an entire website to the City of Chicago. While many (yours truly included) have questioned the necessity for an ESPN satellite site dedicated solely to the Windy City, Chi-town at least has a storied athletic history and a fanbase known and respected for their loyalty, enthusiasm, and eternal optimism (DA BEARS!). While ESPN Chicago doesn’t seem to accomplish anything you couldn’t do with Google news alerts or an RSS feed, at least it showcases a sporting Metropolis, complete with five major franchises and fans who, if nothing else, are in the discussion for most dedicated.
Which is what makes this next move such a head-scratcher. ESPN has announced they’re rolling out even more localized sites, with the second edition set to highlight the sporting Mecca that is…Los Angeles? Surely that’s some sort of error or typo, let me re-check. Nope, it’s LA. Huh. Let’s think about this.
Los Angeles, the city that’s seen three separate professional football franchises leave town, and is now clamoring for another?
The city famous for it’s late-arriving, cell-phone using, early-departing fans?
The city where even when the champion Lakers are playing in the Staples center, they can barely generate any noise because most of those in attendance are busy trying to catch a glimpse of Jack Nicholson’s scary ass or berating their housekeeper via text message?
The city that gives us the Clippers, Kobe Bryant’s rap career, and the driveling, shlock-infested, sanctimonious piece of human smegma that is Bill Plaschke?
We don’t get it. Sure, the City of Angels boasts the current NBA Champions in the aforementioned Lakers, and technically they too have five major franchises after having robber-baroned the Angels from those Philistines in Anaheim. And yes, it is the second most populous city in the United States, and the roided-up ESPN/Disney mega-conglomerate does seem hell-bent on increasing their influence there (sending the Sportscenter big guns, such as, uh…Neil Everett) by whatever means possible.
But it’s not an exaggeration or a mischaracterization to say that when the majority of sports fans in the U.S. think of Los Angeles, it’s either as a punchline or a testament to the idea that more people does not equal more fans. We’re supposed to believe the Southern California natives have enough interest in sports to merit their very own ESPN.com when they can’t fill Dodgers stadium after the team acquired the best hitter in the game? This just smacks of a business decision and not a sports one (shocker coming from ESPN, to be sure) but not even a good business decision at that . What exactly is there to fill the pages of ESPN LA?
The lukewarm public reception of David Beckham? The goings on of the Clippers, who having lost Frankie Muniz, are just down to Penny Marshall, 1/3rd of Bill Simmons and a few lonely sadomasochists for a fanbase? The Los Angeles Sparks? Okay, that last one I couldn’t even type with a straight face. Or maybe extreme sports enthusiasts, who typically don’t spend their free time perusing the interwebs unless they’re searching for Red Bull promotions or System of a Down videos? I suppose there is a lot of potential for covering the academic abyss that is the USC athletic program, but Yahoo! sports seems to pretty much have that beat covered, wouldn’t you say?
Time well tell if this continued experiment in concentrated localization will pay dividends for ESPN, and in general it probably only costs them a drop in the bucket to push it into production (it only requires an additional 15 employees, who will most certainly have a bevy of questions about bike racks and leftover trees). However, it is curious that in a period of increased complaints about ESPN’s coverage, content, and hard-on for cross-promotion, the Giant in Mouse Ears continues to focus on increasing quantity over addressing quality. The problem with ESPN isn’t that it has too little programming or information available, but far too much. Piling even more into a haphazardly constructed mini-site for an overpopulated area with a weak sports tradition is only going to exacerbate the issues of dilution and apparent greed.
Guess they aren’t the Worldwide Leader for nothing.
ESPN to Launch Website Focused on Los Angeles [bizjournals]
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The only good reason would be to stop the whole “east-coast bias” idea. But ya’d think their relentless PAC-10 dick-sucking would have been enough….
USC #1! THEY BEAT NEBRASKA OMG NO WAI
This might be ESPN preying on what they deem to be the weakest major sports media markets. Chicago, maybe they thought Mariotti leaving was a crippling loss. And LA…seriously a 3rd grader with a crayon would be better than Plaschke. Though, the paragraphs would be the same length.
YAAAWWWN. Funny article. Especially since the Dodgers have had the NL’s best attendance for over 20 years. Even though we haven’t had a good team since 1988. Yeah, fans arrive late. It’s Los Angeles. We have the world’s worst traffic. But suddenly that makes us bad fans even though we were the first fans to have over 1 million, 2 million, and 3 million attendance for one baseball season? Ticket sales are down this year? Yeah, no shit. We’re in a recession and the McCourts raise ticket prices. Funny that in that article you linked you don’t mention we have the league’s 2nd highest attendance still. Or that the NY teams have dropped in attendance too. Those damn NY bandwagon fans!
http://www.baseball-almanac.com/teams/laatte.shtml
Funny how a team can draw 3 million + every year just like the Yankees even though we’ve won something like 4 playoff games in the same time they won 4 World Series.
Yeah the Staples Center is quiet. The first two levels have ticket prices that only the rich and famous can afford and the real fans in the 3rd level (which is really the 6th because of 3 luxury box levels) are drowned out by the cavernous Staples Center.
And then you point out our lukewarm reception to Beckham? Wuh? L.A. is mainly Latinos and we’re the only city with 2 MLS teams even though we don’t care about soccer in this country. The entire Home Depot Stadium booed Beckham yesterday after returning. And yeah, Clippers jokes. You should write for Jay Leno when he returns in a couple months if this blog-thing doesn’t work out for you.
If this blog can get more than 2 more links on Deadspin, I’ll personally treat you to a UCLA basketball game, USC football game, or some tickets in the left-field pavilions in Dodger Stadium. Be sure to wear orange and black.
“Or that the NY teams have dropped in attendance too. Those damn NY bandwagon fans!”
The Mets cut 10,000+ seats out going from Shea to Citifield, did you expect attendance to increase?
F*ck off. Dodger attendance is #1 or 2 in MLB every year. Angels are #3 or 4. 250,000 people came to the Laker parade… at noon on a Wednesday in 90 degree heat. That the Clippers and Kings can even sell seats is a miracle in any city. Lakers sell out the whole season the day tickets go on sale.
Losing the Raiders and Rams was no fun, but it was because LA has the balls to tell owners they have to finance their own stadiums. If bending over for billionaire owners and developers make you a true fan, then so does buying team hats in every color. You can love a team and not give it all your money.
I have heard the anti-LA argument before, but never heard anyone cite MLS or WNBA to defend their arguments. Your dad is ashamed of you and your ex-girlfriends are getting AIDS tested as we speak, twinkletoes.
We all agree however that Plaschke is garbage, the Clippers suck and that Hollywood stars only show up for the playoffs with the exception of Jack and Larry King.
[...] Aims to Be the Home Team, All Over America [NY Times] ESPN Los Angeles? I Give It 6 Months Before It’s ESPN Oakland [Style Points] No news is bad news [Sports Business Journal] Earlier: What Is Up With This [...]
CPH: love the site, but i disagree with you on this one. the primary reason espn’s dedicated site may work is because the local newspapers’ sports coverage is just absolute garbage.
your attempt to justify your position is cute and everything but i think you got it wrong. there are plenty of people out here that will read anything related to SC or UCLA. and like sir sanctimonious stated above, the traffic, as everyone knows, is horrendous. if you’re unemployed then getting to a dodgers game on time is no problem. but if have a job, it’s tough to get to the place on time unless you live and work on the eastside or downtown. finally, you want an un-lukewarm welcome for beckham?
“Piling even more into a haphazardly constructed mini-site for an overpopulated area with a weak sports tradition is only going to exacerbate the issues of dilution and apparent greed”
Not really sure what the point of this article was, other than to do a nitwit sportswriter impression
The Lakers have 10 rings since moving to LA, USC and UCLA have 24 NCAA football and basketball championships, and the Angels/Dodgers have combined for 6 more. 40 championships in one metroarea = a weak sports tradition? Hmm, and where’d the Dodgers come from? Oh that’s right, New York. Maybe if you weren’t such a fuckin’ idiot and realized that politics had more to do with franchises leaving than fan loyalty, you wouldn’t look like such a…well, fuckin’ idiot.
“I see dumb people everywhere!”
DUDE LA has the most sports championships in the nation. 2X that of NY. we are arguably the sports capital of the world. undisputedly, title town.
Man I was seriously ready to tear this article apart but it looks like my fellow LA sports fans have already done that for me. God I love LA
Oh by the way…Go Dodgers!!!!!