Debates: Bad SportsCasting

Ever try to watch a football game when a small child wants your attention? The child will do the darnedest, and cutest things to keep your attention, so the game will likely take the backseat. Apparently ESPN thinks your viewing experience can be enhanced by having two sportscasters act like cute, small children in attempt to prevent and distract you from watching the game. ESPN does not call this distracting, but rather Friday Night Debate.

Here is how ESPN describes Friday Night Debate: "Every Friday night during the ESPN2 college football broadcast, analysts Trevor Matich and Rod Gilmore debate a hot-button college football topic. Cast your vote and send in your comment for possible use on-air." The two debaters then square off on the issue; since both men are educated and thoughtful, they often have interesting insights during their debate.

The issue is the timing of the debate, which occurs in the 3rd quarter while the game is being played -- so instead of seeing formations and commentary on the line-ups and plays, we hear the debate team in action. ESPN preempts coverage of the offensive and defensive line-ups so we can watch Gilmore and Matich debate. Lets make sure this point is clear, you miss parts of the game and coverage of the game to see these guys debate. If the debates occurred during a timeout or halftime (or on CNN), then great, but putting the debates over the actual game viewers tuned in to watch is bad sportscasting and tantamount to sports coverage sacrilege as it says the announcers views are more important then the actual game. This is bad practice and scary precedent; we encourage ESPN to move the timing of the debate and encourage sportscasters to talk about the game, particularly during the game.