Coming soon, perhaps, to a Cocktail Party near your television.
ESPN, the network and self-proclaimed worldwide leader in sports, is on this Earth for one reason and one reason only: to provide a telecast and entertainment in whatever sport they are paying millions and often billions of dollars to broadcast. ESPN also wants to be in the assumption business, meaning those at the network think they know what viewers want.
On Saturday, a day made specifically for college football, ESPN thought it would be wise to split screen games with Yankees slugger Aaron Judge and his quest to tie the American League record for home runs in a season. Does anyone else see the issue here? The reason you didn’t see that on Friday night is because the game against the Boston Red Sox was nationally televised and the network isn’t allowed to break into coverage.
College football fans, especially the teams whose games were split screen, don’t care about Judge or baseball, at least not while their team is playing. If a consumer wanted to watch the Yankees, there are plenty of other ways to do that, but the network must think people don’t own smartphones, can’t stream, or go to a bar to watch if they really wanted to see history.
ESPN had the same issue with the its Monday Night Football telecast, assuming that fans wanted to be updated on the other game with that dreaded split screen. Only when Clemson and Wake Forest went to overtime Saturday did they use some common sense and update Judge’s chase instead of breaking into live action.
It’s a matter of when, not if. Mickey don’t care. And the saddest thing will be watching Greg Sankey ignore it.
Get The Picture 
Finally someone is saying this. Between updating me on other sports in the middle of the game I’m watching and the massive intrusive bottom line flashing distracting colors and taking up 10% of the screen…
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Make a deal with the devil. The new B1G commissioner made a better deal.
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One thing about living in ‘today’. You start getting instant feedback, and I have no doubt that the feedback coming out of the SEC was “get that NY Yankee $%#! off of my TV”. So they’ll learn to break into Big 10 games and leave the SEC the ‘F’ alone. LOL
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Oh that’s right! They won’t have Big 10 games…
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My Clemson pal, Grant, is the most even-tempered, level headed fellow I know. His texts concerning that split screen yankees chickenshit were in danger of melting my phone. He was livid! Of course the fact that WF was playing the Tigers so close did nothing to help his mood.
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Clemson sucks.
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Spoken like a gentleman.
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Father knows best….
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Hey, now, all the college football fans who suddenly became Bama fans in 2009, or Clemson fans in 2016, were surely on pins and needles about their favorite baseball team.
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My Longhorn wife was pissed (and I was annoyed) seeing that shit on our screen. She actually called ESPN and once a person answered, she said she had some positive feedback. The call drone audibly perked up, and then she said she was positive no one watching college football gives a shit about the Yankees and baseball. Certainly not enough to split the screen and change audio to the baseball call.
I told my wife this was just a sign of things to come once Disney runs everything.
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Oh, and ESPN boner for anything Yankees-Red Sox rivals Jimmy Williamsons’ boner for arresting UGA players.
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A typical move by a northeastern media company. They know best for the rest of the country. Just ask them! 🌝
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Sure, we don’t want it and the people watching the game don’t want it, but other people will turn on ESPN to watch it and that’s the only thing that matters to Disney. How many people are watching? The more people watching means more ad dollars. What risk is there? Is the college football fan gonna turn it off? Nope.
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I can’t imagine anyone watching a college football game yesterday was thinking about Judge. Those interested in that were probably watching the baseball game live anyway.
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I would watch CSPAN before I’d watch Yankees-Red Sox.
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I beg to differ. ESPN exists on this planet for one reason and one reason only – to make money. Everything they do is subservient to that goal.
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Historical break-ins, are just not that often nor common enough to wring wrists over. Besides, our screens are much bigger. No biggy.
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That’s so weird. I’ve never seen them break into commercials.
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I mean, if he hits the home run, then maybe you break in and show us that. Otherwise, it was just annoying.
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1968 “Heidi” says hold my beer? wow. i missed this.
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