ESPN is the Worst

ESPN, or as they call themselves “The Worldwide Leader in Sports” is making major headlines, as they have just recently laid off a numerous amount of popular on-air personalities. This list includes longtime NFL reporter Ed Werder, college football analyst Brett McMurphy, longtime MLB reporter Jayson Stark, NFL analyst Trent Dilfer, former Washington Nationals GM Jim Bowden and college football analyst and radio host Danny Kanell. John Buccigross isn’t gone yet but is in jeopardy with his contract being up this summer. Ryen Russillo, longtime “Baseball Tonight” host Karl Ravech and veteran Hannah Storm will see their roles significantly reduced.

You can blame this on a variety of different factors. Viewers are turning away from the traditional ways of consuming live sports, as you can tell by the over 10 million subscribers the network has lost over the past several years. The cost of broadcasting sports has also risen, with ESPN signing major deals with the NFL, NBA, and college football playoffs in order to show games on their network. In October 2015, ESPN laid off around 300 employees, mostly off-screen, and has been periodically cutting staff. The Disney cable network division reported a loss of $864 million in operating income, dropping 11 percent from last year, with ESPN the reason for the entire decline. It’s said this time it’s around 100 employees being laid off.

ESPN also cut Pierre LeBrun, Scott Burnside, and writer Joe McDonald, some of the most respected and experienced reporters in the hockey industry and pretty much all of their NHL coverage. If you combine that with the possible termination of Buccigross, who is more or less the face of ESPN hockey, the self proclaimed “Worldwide Leader in Sports” is practically saying hockey isn’t a sport. At this point, they have to let go of Barry Melrose. Who else is he going to report hockey with besides Buccigross? ESPN is proving that no matter how much the fans love sports such as baseball and hockey, they’ll always play second fiddle behind football and basketball on their shows and I think that’s a shame.

I personally haven’t watched ESPN in years due to their bias. They’d rather have their ridiculous circus shows like First Take, Pardon the Interruption and Sportsnation, than actually have sports coverage. Why watch ESPN when you have the MLB, NFL, NBA, and NHL Networks to fill your individual needs? Be better ESPN and stop calling yourself “The Worldwide Leader in Sports” when you cover 2 sports and can’t even keep your employees on the payroll.

What is North Korea’s Problem?

Last week North Korea attempted to test a new missile they have developing and apparently were not very successful. The below quote is taken from an article from abcnews.com

“According to U.S. officials, the missile fired on Saturday exploded four to five seconds after its launch near a North Korean submarine base in Sinpo along the country’s eastern coast.

“The launch failed very early on, so that makes it harder to know exactly what they were trying to do,” Susan Thornton, Acting Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, said on Monday. “But I think that our understanding is that it was not one of the longer-range missiles that they were trying to test there; it was something like a medium-range ballistic missile.”

I must ask the question, what exactly is Kim Jong Un’s problem? Take a chill pill bro. This guy is hell-bent on creating a legit nuclear weapons program just so he can destroy the world. It’s like he is trying to play real life Grand Theft Auto.

There’s a 67 percent chance that this guy isn’t actually a human but an alien sent here to try to destroy the world. It’s no wonder he can’t build a successful nuclear weapons program with a hair cut like that. His favorite basketball player / bro is Dennis Rodman. RODZILLA. Not LeBron, not Kobe, not Jordan. DENNIS RODMAN.

• terrible haircut
• no power to light the country at night
• horrible taste in pro sports athletes
• can’t feed his people cause he’s prolly eating it all
• Bombs literally can’t get off the platform

MUST DESTROY USA!

Should end well for him.

Definitely not.

Breaking down the big news this week

Aaron Hernandez:

The biggest news story of the day is obviously the suicide of former New England Patriots Tight End Aaron Hernandez. He was discovered hanging in his cell at the Souza Baranowski Correctional Center in Shirley, Mass., at approximately 3:05 a.m. What reports have stated, is that he used a bed sheet that he attached to his window and also attempted to block his door from the inside by jamming it with a various amount of items. He was transported to UMass Memorial in Leominster, where he was pronounced dead at 4:07 a.m. He left no note and the suicide comes five days after he was acquitted of murdering two men in Boston in 2012.

Obviously, this is a complex saga which will result in several documentaries similarly to OJ Simpson. Everything about this story has went the opposite way in which the public has expected and I’m sure we’ll hear about even more details in the following weeks. It’s just a shame when someone as talented as Hernandez ends up going down a path as dark as he did and unfortunately, it’s not the first or the last time we’ll see something like this happen.

Starling Marte:

One of baseball’s best talents was suspended 80 games by the MLB yesterday for the performance enhancing drug Nandrolone. This is a black eye on the game of baseball and not only destroys The Pittsburgh Pirates, who is losing their best player, but also destroys several of my fantasy baseball teams. I’m very mad about this, as Marte is one of my favorite players because of his ability to do everything on the field, from playing defense, hitting home runs, and stealing bases, the guy is fun to watch. Pittsburgh almost traded their former “face of the franchise” Andrew McCutchen because they had Marte and I don’t think they can recover from this. A cheater is always a cheater, not to mention he blamed “neglect and lack of knowledge” on his suspension, just admit to it and move on, I hate how these guys make excuses every time.

The Leftovers is the best show on TV right now:

On Sunday night, The Leftovers had its Season 3 premiere and it picked up right where it left off in terms of quality. If you don’t know already, which you should, this is the final season of one of the under most under-watched and underappreciated shows ever to come on television. I wrote an article prior to Season 3 starting as well. ” The new Leftovers Trailer is Crazy Good “.

Now that Game of Thrones was pushed back it’s going to miss out on the major awards ceremonies such as The Emmy Awards and I really hope The Leftovers takes its places and finally gets nominated. Season 2 is one of the best seasons of any show in television history and this season looks to be picking up right where it left off. There’s only been a total of 21 episodes so far in the entire series and if you haven’t watched, I suggest you binge through it as you won’t be disappointed.

Richard Simmons hospitalized for severe indigestion:

Richard Simmons was admitted to a California hospital for what his manager called “severe indigestion”. I wrote an article previously about Richard Simmons as well and how he has been missing for over 3 years. ” Apparently Richard Simmons has been missing for over 3 years “. He’s already feeling better and expected to make a full recovery but at least we know the guy is alive.

You Should Be Watching Better Call Saul

 

If you would had told me after Breaking Bad ended that the creators of that show would make a spinoff / prequel focusing on Saul Goodman and that by the beginning of season 3 it would be among the best shows on T.V. I would have said you were crazy. However, that’s exactly where we find ourselves. Season 3 of Better Call Saul started last night with a truly terrific episode which picks up right where we left off at the end of season 2.

I have heard from some people before that they have tried to watch this show on Netflix but wasn’t able to get into it because it’s “to slow”, specifically Season 1. Yea, if you’re looking for wild and crazy plot twists and plot points like in Breaking Bad, this probably isn’t the show for you. However, if you’re into great characters ( some of whom we already know and love), expertly written characters and storylines and gorgeous camera work you may want to check this out. In the very least, if you loved Breaking Bad, how the hell can you NOT watch this show? Vince Gilligan is building on the Breaking Bad universe and anyone who loved that show should be along for the ride for this one.

This really wasn’t much of a review of last nights episode, more of an appreciation post for this show. We are extremely close to reaching the Breaking Bad timeline that we know and I can not wait to enjoy the rest of the ride in getting there. I need to know how exactly Jimmy McGill becomes Saul Goodman. My hunch is big brother Chuck is going to be pushing him fully to the dark side. I need to see how Mike and Gus become the intertwined and become the who we know them to be in the Breaking Bad timeline. I need to know why Kim Wexler isn’t in the Breaking Bad timeline. I suspect her and Jimmy won’t have a pleasant parting.

If you have Netflix, watch this show ASAP. It’s only the beginning of Season 3 and it’s probably already going to be remembered as one of the best spinoffs / prequels ever. There’s a lot of shit on Netflix at the moment for T.V. series. You can spare the 20 episode commitment it’ll take to catch up. Or not. Your loss.