THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, June 16, 1996 TAG: 9606160156
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Bob Molinaro
LENGTH: 71 lines
Until the Cable Guys introduced their newest bright idea, the last thing I thought America needed was more sports programming on TV.
On those few occasions when I'm allowed to leave the house, I hear a lot of things from sports fans. What I've never heard anyone say is, ``Gee, my life would be so much better if there were a way to squeeze even more scores and highlights into each day.''
I was surprised, then, to learn of the creation of ESPNEWS, which is ESPN's third network, dedicated to providing breaking news, live press conferences, scores, highlights and analysis 24 hours, seven days a week.
ESPNEWS starts Nov. 1 on a cable system near you. Think of it as C-SPAN for guys who wear cheeseheads or belong to rotisserie leagues.
An American male just can't get enough scores and highlights in his diet.
Or too much analysis. Where would we be without TV's incisive sports analysis, which normally consists of an ex-jock looking into the wrong camera while reminding us that the losing team must learn from this experience.
``Our customers have told us that they're surfing looking for news,'' said John Walsh, ESPN's executive editor, ``and the place they want to get it is from ESPN.''
The Cable Guys arrived at this discovery after ``exhaustive research.'' Where does research like this take place, inside federal penitentiaries?
And ESPNEWS will beat on the air by a month or two a similar all-sports network started by CNN and Sports Illustrated. Neither new network will feature live sports competition, just scores, highlights, press conferences, and, of course, analysis.
``There are times,'' Walsh says, ``at which people want to look for news when there is a lull in games.''
Until the Cable Guys came along with this bright idea, I thought that the lull in games was a hint that it was time to resume life, pull away from the tube, reintroduce yourself to the wife and kids, and stop acting like the total sports network geek.
Soon, there could be no excuse for turning off the TV. What, and miss that arena football score?
Then again, it's not as if you can't get scores almost anytime you want right now. It's almost impossible to avoid them.
For several years, CNN Headline News has run a ``crawl'' along the bottom of the screen during its continuous 30-minute news roundups.
These scores are relentless. They stop for nothing, except commercials. Not war or peace or plane crashes or forest fires or oil spills or the fall of governments.
CNN will be showing video of workers digging up jet parts from the Florida Everglades, or soldiers uncovering mass graves in Bosnia, while ball scores roll merrily along below the gruesome pictures.
Has anyone paused to consider the psychological impact years of watching this has had on us?
You're drawn in by video of human suffering - perhaps a famine in Africa - and suddenly your eyes refocus: Look, the Yankees have just gone ahead!
And people wonder why Americans grow numb to tragedy.
As for the 24/7 sports news networks, I'm trying to figure what they could give us that we're missing now.
``We'll be able to track an ongoing breaking news story more closely,'' says Walsh.
This is fine hype. But how many riveting sports stories of national interest crop up each week? Each month?
I suspect that, for all the promotion, what ESPNEWS will give us is more of the same. More witless sound bites and arcane statistics. And instead of six hours worth of video each day of guys bouncing out to the mound, we'll get 18.
The point, I suppose, is to avoid any lull in the action. God forbid there be a lull. Conversation might make a comeback.
I don't know enough cheeseheads to do my own exhaustive research on the potential of these networks. But let me give the Cable Guys over at ESPNEWS some advice: To avoid slow news days, clone Marge Schott. by CNB