Thank you for updating my notebook. In my head, all those “talking head” shows kind of run together. There were others besides PTI and Around the Horn … I just can’t recall the titles.
PTI is still the throne upon which Stephen A. Smith sits, correct?
Remember when they tried out Cold Pizza – a 90-minute (?) sports news and infotainment broadcast on weekday mornings, aimed (I think) at that young-adult pre-marriage-kids-&-responsibilities crowd? Around 2002-2005 or thereabouts? Probably introduced the concept a decade too late.
Also, the SportsCenter anchors have apparently been ordered to high five each other at the end of every show. It is extremely cringe and awkward every time. This isn’t related to anything in this thread but it’s been annoying me for months so I felt compelled to share.
The last time I can recall checking in on a SportsCenter episode, it was not too long before we got rid of our cable package circa 2016-17. I remember for sure Sage Steele being one of the hosts teamed with (maybe?) Adnan Virk, who I knew from ESPN Radio. Anyway, there was no high-fiving that I can remember … but the show just seemed weird. Wasn’t like the old days – but then, what is? It had all passed me by, and I made my peace with that.
We got pretty far into this thread without mentioning HBO’s original Inside the NFL. I cut my teeth on the 1980s edition. Both hosts were former players who were warm and competent on camera – Len Dawson and Nick Buoniconti. But the best part …
Harry Kalas’ commentary over licensed NFL Films clips. Still cool as heck 43 years later.
There’s been attempts to keep the show afloat since Dawson and Buoniconti retired after the 2001 season. But again – sing it with me – “it’s not the same”. Damn cloud! [shakes fist].
Yeah there were a bunch of those. The sweaty guy from Florida (edit: Dan Le Batard) had one with his non-broadcaster dad, Michael Smith and Jamele Hill had one together (had to Google their names), pretty sure Mina Kimes was part of one as well. And that’s just what I remember offhand as a person who never watched any of them except PTI. I’m sure there were many more.
And I do remember giving Cold Pizza a try for the first few awkward episodes and then never going back.
Do you mean that Steven A. Smith can run because PTI walked, or something along those lines? He has no affiliation with PTI that I’m aware of.
I hung with Inside the NFL for too long, even through the first couple Showtime years, but then I finally bailed. Probably started watching it in the early '90s.
Absolutely the case for me, too. We got cable TV in 1981, when I was 16, and was a big fan of football and baseball. I loved watching SportsCenter, but I also enjoyed the similar Sports Tonight on CNN, with Fred Hickman and Nick Charles.
ESPN, in case you were not aware, has been owned by Disney since 1996. The deal for the NFL Network also involved the NFL gaining a 10% ownership stake in ESPN.
This is what I miss: Howard Cosell. During halftime of Monday Night Foodball, he would present (and narrate) highlights from yesterday’s games. There was not enough time to show every game, and I would get a bit irritated when he skipped my team (which was most episodes).
Of course you’re right, and I was remiss to have this slip my mind and not account for Disney’s ownership. It does make me wonder, though, why the news wasn’t couched as “Disney buys NFL Network, cedes 10% of ESPN’s properties to NFL”. Above my pay grade, for sure.
It’s weird to think of ESPN on one hand as a relic of a bygone era that no longer has relevance, and on the other hand as a still-relevant player in sports media. Maybe it’s the cable-television arm that’s the albatross – kept afloat mostly for legacy – and other ESPN properties are doing well.
I feel like Albert broke these out on other NBC programming, as well. Definitely remember the AAAs — but I didn’t catch Letterman much back then.
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@Mean_Mr.Mustard , great call about Cosell’s MNF halftime recaps. Chris Berman updated Cosell’s format once ESPN got Monday Night Football—remember “The Fastest Three Minutes in Sports”?
I think that, certainly, the ESPN which we all remember is a relic (and SportsCenter, in the way that we remember it, is, too), but I do think that it’s still very relevant – it’s just that what it provides to sports fans has changed. Sports talk (not sports news) is a huge part of that now, as mentioned upthread. I’m not sure that the cable channel is an albatross, per se, but it is likely becoming less relevant as their streaming services, fantasy sports offerings, etc., become more prominent.
