OMBUDSMAN CITES “ARROGANCE” AND “EXCESS” IN FINAL ESPN COLUMN

We’ve previously suggested that the breadth of the operations in Bristol requires something more meaningful than a one-column-per-month ombudsman, if ESPN is serious about keeping itself honest. That said, the one-column-per-month-ombudsman whose term has just ended did a good job with the limited time and space that she had. In her final column at ESPN.com (which we noticed thanks to our friends at SportsBusiness Daily), Lee Anne Schreiber points to “arrogance” and “excess” as the two biggest problems facing the network. “When I cast my mind back over two years of mail, searching for that taproot, the first word that came to mind was ‘arrogance,’” she writes. “That wasn’t the word most frequently used by fans, but accusations of arrogance were implicit in the many complaints I received about specific anchors who imposed their personalities on the news, announcers who elevated their own chatter over the game at hand, commentators who leapt to the absolute in a single shout, columnists who heaped scorn on minor sports or minor markets, and the relentless corporate ‘me, me, me’ of multiplatform cross-promotion.” As to the “excess,” here’s what she had to say: “Much of the ‘too much’ mail I received came from fans who wanted to see their own favorite teams and players get a fairer share of coverage. More telling was the mail I received from fans of ESPN’s favored few. ‘Favre was one of my favorite players in the NFL,’ wrote a fan from Kansas City. ‘Now I’m just sick of hearing about him.’” Amen, to both. And we don’t point this out because we have something against ESPN. I grew up watching ESPN. I still have burned into my brain a memory of sitting near the television with my dad, drinking a milkshake and watching Patrick Ewing with those giraffe legs he called arms poking out from the T-shirt he wore under his uniform, possibly to conceal the fact that he had the physique of someone who never drank a milkshake in his entire life. In those days, I rooted for ESPN to succeed, and I was offended when people called it the network of tiddly winks and tractor pulls. I celebrated probably as much as anyone on the payroll when ESPN gained full legitimacy by becoming an NFL broadcast partner in 1987. Hell, I worked for ESPN.com for six months and was honored to do it. I wrestled with the decision whether to sign a full one-year contract effective November 1, 2001, or to launch this joint. We criticize ESPN from time to time simply because it’s the unchallenged king of the mountain, and from time to time the king needs to hear something other than “you look marvelous” while periodically riding bareback -- and bare assed -- down the middle of the street. Hopefully, Schreiber’s words will be heeded. And, hopefully, the next ombudsman will be given a bigger platform to help ESPN completely fulfill the expectations of all former teenagers who muttered back in the early 1980s, “Holy crap, they’ve got a whole channel with nothing but sports on it.”