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October 27, 2005
The Chronic Curmudgeon Pop Culture Influence #10: Sports Center
I'm finally winding this little countdown down... we're Into the top ten pop culture influences/moments of the last 25 years.
10. ESPN SportsCenter Originally a once a day show, SportsCenter eventually evolved into the mainstay of ESPN -- airing as often as 12 times each day. And while in its early years SportsCenter was little more than a national version of a local sportscast, somewhere along the line something changed. It became a cultural icon.
First it was the anchor team of Dan Patrick and Keith Olbermann who became stars, contributing sports catchphrases like "en fuego," "the whiff" and "GUH!" to the sports lexicon. Later, Kenny Mayne and eventually Stuart Scott also became household names (although Scott's annoying tendency to attempt a catch phrase every third word has worn very thin). SportsCenter also generated some of the funniest commercials of the late 1990s. And for guys or sports nuts everywhere, the concept was heaven: highlights of every game we couldn't see, every big play we couldn't catch. The six note theme song - dun-nuh-NUNT! dun-nuh-NUNT! - got ingrained into our collective heads. ESPN grew into a billion dollar media entity largely on the back of SportsCenter. Heck, even late night TV got one of its stars of the late 90s and early 2000s, Craig Kilborn, from SportsCenter. The show wasn't just about sports, it was a cultural touchstone.
But there was an uglier side to SportsCenter. Little by little, it helped change sports -- and not always for the better. The sudden 24/7 availability of sporting news and highlights began contributing to the egos and air of invincibility surrounding many athletes, who began seeing their own omnipresence on television as entitling them to special treatment and a separate set of rules. The emphasis on the highlight and the big play meant that an entire generation of kid-athletes grew up simply not caring about the fundamentals of their sport; a sacrifice to advance the runner or a really good pass or running a good decoy route wouldn't get you on SportsCenter, so why bother? So athletes began focusing on the home run, the slam dunk... it became better to look good for yourself rather than doing the little things to win. Baseball players began standing at the plate, watching the ball and showing up a pitcher after a home run; football players started thumping their own chests for an 8 yard catch on a 3rd and 15 play; basketball players who couldn't be bothered with the fundamentals got shoe contracts for thunderdunks. And I honestly think that the SportsCenter-fueled obsession with the home run may well have contributed to the pervasiveness and extent of the steroid abuse of the last decade in Major League Baseball that we've only become more fully aware of in the past year or so.
The impact has been both good and bad, but it has been undeniable. SportsCenter changed the way we watched sports, and it changed the sports themselves. Given the role sports play in our lives (a role made significantly larger by SportsCenter), the show earns the #10 spot in this countdown.
Comments
If "Booyah" were excised from the language, I could forgive SportsCenter most of the rest of its excesses. Now, if they really wanted to get on my good side, they'd get rid of what's-his-name that does that "Quite Frankly" show, too, but I can't expect that, I suppose.
Posted by: Linkmeister at October 28, 2005 03:22 AM
