ESPN Decides To Double Down On Social Justice Warrioring

Because, as Kemberlee Kay at Legal Insurrection notes, “Because what viewers want is MORE politics in their sports…” And

“You can’t possibly make sports TV any more unwatchable!”
ESPN: “Hold my beer!”https://t.co/vRPMjxLB3s

— Kemberlee Kaye (@KemberleeKaye) April 4, 2017

Oh, so you just want to watch sports? Listen to people talk about sports? Hear stats about sports? You’d like to escape from the daily grind with sports? Uh uh uh

(ESPN) Stiegman said no single issue or incident led to the change, but Craig Bengtson, ESPN’s vice president and managing editor of newsgathering and reporting, said the nation’s tense political climate did play a role.

“We have the convergence of a politically charged environment and all these new technologies coming together at once,” he said. “Based on that, we wanted the policy to reflect the reality of the world today. There are people talking about politics in ways we have not seen before, and we’re not immune from that.”

And the changes?

The two most notable changes from the Political Advocacy policy are the delineation of guidelines between news and commentary, and allowing for increased political discussion on ESPN platforms, as warranted and connected to sports. This isn’t a surprising development, it’s just new.

“We wanted to err on the side of transparency and trust with our reporting,” Stiegman said, “but also give our columnists and commentators the freedom to discuss topics relevant to those sports fans who visit our platforms, even if the issues are political or social in nature.”

I turn into ESPN for, get this, sports. Or, at least, I used to. Now, the only time I watch ESPN is football games, when they broadcast the Dodgers, and some football programming on Sunday. Oh, and when it is on at the gym and I’m on the treadmill or stationary bike. Otherwise, there is little interest. They don’t show that much in relation to the NHL, Baseball Tonight has become lame, and I can see all the scores and replays either on the ‘net or on another sports channel. And lots of people are doing the same. As Kemberlee notes, ESPN is hemorrhaging more customers than people with Ebola hemorrhage blood.

I’m not interested in the the loud mouths, and, by loud mouths, I mean people TALKING REALLY, REALLY LOUD. Or speaking in Ebonics. Or by being Jim Rome clones (if I want to hear that, I’ll listen to Rome). Or the politics. If I want lefty politics, MSNBC is there. I have Spectrum News, Fox, MSNBC, Headline News, CNN, Bloomberg, CNBC, BBC, ABC, CBS, NBC, and plenty of others on the TV for news. I have the MLB channel, NFL Network, NHL channel, NBC Sports, CBS Sports, Fox Sports, Golf, and plenty of others for sports. I don’t need ESPN. I have no way of not paying for it, unless I ditch cable altogether.

And, let me be clear: if a sports channel was taking the Conservative side in discussing politics in sports, I wouldn’t watch them, either.

Can’t we just watch sports?