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Real Sports 2.0?
ESPN's "E:60" raises the bar for TV sports magazines
One doesn't have to have worked for ESPN to have found its products mock-worthy, but it helps. My time with the company was earmarked by the companionship of coworkers smarter than any I've been around before or since. That these above-average people put in so much effort to make such a dumb product just blew me away. It drove me to take LSD and Ecstasy in the restroom, if only to make work life a bit interesting.
In a stunning change of strategy, the sports network now brings you E:60, an hour's worth of compelling, uncondescending magazine-style news. And apparently the show's producers have managed this without resorting to hallucinogens. I've checked out close to two hours of E:60, a title that recalls Anderson Cooper's show, and saw in it elements that call to mind Real Sports. If the show's producers and reporters play their cards right, they'll be on the air until they're as decrepit as the folks who do 60 Minutes. But for now, they'll just have to settle for providing guilt-free sports programming. ESPN viewers who possess triple-digit IQs will attest to what a rare treat that is.
My favorite piece of the first episode was Jeremy Schaap's interview with Cecil Fielder. The former baseball great is at odds with his son, Milwaukee Brewers slugger Prince Fielder, over matters of money and respect — the usual father vs. son business. Schaap's a reporter who oozes gravitas, and that helped him do an awesome job. The reporter's own father, the late Dick Schaap, was also famous, adding an extra bit of empathy. I ate my heart out watching this one go down, as Prince and I chilled out for a minute last winter in Miami. All I got from him was an earnest take on how Milwaukee would finally earn back the local fans' trust. There's more to his difficulties with Cecil than even Schaap touched on. But I didn't dare go there.
In a stunning change of strategy, the sports network now brings you E:60, an hour's worth of compelling, uncondescending magazine-style news. And apparently the show's producers have managed this without resorting to hallucinogens. I've checked out close to two hours of E:60, a title that recalls Anderson Cooper's show, and saw in it elements that call to mind Real Sports. If the show's producers and reporters play their cards right, they'll be on the air until they're as decrepit as the folks who do 60 Minutes. But for now, they'll just have to settle for providing guilt-free sports programming. ESPN viewers who possess triple-digit IQs will attest to what a rare treat that is.
My favorite piece of the first episode was Jeremy Schaap's interview with Cecil Fielder. The former baseball great is at odds with his son, Milwaukee Brewers slugger Prince Fielder, over matters of money and respect — the usual father vs. son business. Schaap's a reporter who oozes gravitas, and that helped him do an awesome job. The reporter's own father, the late Dick Schaap, was also famous, adding an extra bit of empathy. I ate my heart out watching this one go down, as Prince and I chilled out for a minute last winter in Miami. All I got from him was an earnest take on how Milwaukee would finally earn back the local fans' trust. There's more to his difficulties with Cecil than even Schaap touched on. But I didn't dare go there.
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