ESPN finds itself in an odd place on the eve of launching its direct-to-consumer product tomorrow. The network is trying to adapt to how a younger audience consumes information while maintaining the credibility and brand awareness it holds with older sports fans. It’s a challenge any network, radio, or television station faces: how to reach the next generation without alienating the current one.
This is why people such as Jimmy Pitaro, Eric Shanks, Kelli Turner, and Bob Pittman make the big bucks and wear suits.
That’s why I found Rich Eisen’s appearance hosting SportsCenter on Monday evening following Monday Night Football so fascinating. It was a throwback to a time when sports highlight shows mattered, when journalism mattered, and when personalities grew in-house rather than being licensed from outside Bristol. Promoted as a throwback celebration to help promote the new ESPN DTC coming this week, Eisen’s appearance was more of a window into what once was and will never be again.
I’m a child of the ’90s. I remember waking up at the early hours of the morning every weekday to get my SportsCenter fix. I had that desire to know what my favorite teams and players did the night before. It was layered in personality, quick liners, and Booyahs. I found my solace in the destination known as SportsCenter.
Calling Back the Past Attempting To Market the Future
When ESPN announced the return of Rich Eisen to SportsCenter, I was interested in what I saw on Monday night. The scrolling SportsCenter lettering in deep gold and red mixed with black and white. The return of the bloopers tease, well-crafted and written to fit the fun of the program returning. Then you see Eisen at the desk, suit and tie, ready to say, “Welcome to SportsCenter” for the first time in over twenty years.
There were callbacks to Stuart Scott and NFL Primetime music during highlights of the Commanders-Bengals game. I was 13 again in a 44-year-old body. I smiled, but I also felt a pang of sadness. The old man in me reminded my inner youth: this is what it used to be like.
It felt so right but also felt so wrong. I knew tomorrow would not be the same. Tomorrow would be back to business for ESPN, the network attempting to connect with youth and cord-cutting while teasing the older generation to stick around through remembrances of what they were.
I woke up yesterday and found one simple truth regarding the flagship program for the company’s historic rise to success: the destination is no more.
ESPN used Eisen’s return to pitch the upcoming ESPN direct-to-consumer product, promoting that his radio program would arrive on Disney+ and ESPN platforms on September 2. Marketing a new product by showing what was, not what will be—leaning into nostalgia only goes so far when the network has moved away from its signature program far too long ago.
The Game Has Changed
Simply put, SportsCenter is no longer a go-to for the younger generation. Short-form video and real-time social media have ruined the experience of joining the party through the vessel of SportsCenter. Granted, the show’s branding will live forever. We all know the da-da-da, da-da-da theme music, which rings true to our heartstrings.
The times call for different. The era of the sports highlight show is done, and ESPN must pivot for its own survival. What once carried the network is no longer needed by it, but is being utilized as a callback to market the next generation of the network. This makes little sense.
ESPN is in a bind because you can tell the network doesn’t want to admit the known truth for some time now. Adapting the SportsCenter brand to Snapchat, TikTok, and other short-form video platforms is trusting the algorithm of those platforms to value their content.
This is why ESPN is moving to a TikTok-like model of short-form video with their direct-to-consumer rollout tomorrow: conform to what has destroyed your highlight show model, but control how it’s consumed on your own platform.
It’s a smart business play for the network, but it’s behind the times. The younger generation is not only more adept at using what they know already, but they’re also the generation of free. Why pay $29.99 a month to get what I already get for free?
Do you really think ESPN is going to stop playing in those “free” spaces to house everything in their DTC product? I don’t think that would be wise for the top digital and social ranker in the United States.
The other challenge for ESPN is the influencer economy. The younger generation is attracted to people they can connect with. My kids call their favorite influencers ones they can “vibe with.” Who from ESPN hosting a personalized highlight show can the younger generation “vibe with”?
Who has the “cooler than the other side of the pillow” mantra like Stuart Scott today? Who is the odd yet intriguing personality of Kenny Mayne today? ‘The Big Show’ with Olbermann and Patrick—who’s that tag team in sports media today? Who’s Rich Eisen in today’s ESPN culture?
The answer you would get from most is Scott Van Pelt, who does a phenomenal job in the late hours of the network. But late-night television, from all indications, is dying.
Randy Scott and Gary Striewski are a notable tag team of their own, but they’re still developing a niche audience of their own on a platform that isn’t known for sports (yet) in Disney+.
Ask yourself: is that enough to keep a flagship program alive for ESPN? Ask the 13–15-year-old sports fan who their favorite SportsCenter anchor is, and you may get more responses such as, “What is SportsCenter?”
The “First Inning” Begins Tomorrow
This is the odd place ESPN finds itself in today. In its ramp-up for the launch of the ESPN direct-to-consumer product, it’s utilized the past to market it to a generation that will, more than likely, have to buy it. It’s done little (at least on the network television side) to market it to the generation that the DTC product needs to reach—the younger end of the demo.
A younger end of the demo that has grown up in the age of free and pay-for-nothing.
Credit ESPN Chairman Jimmy Pitaro for crafting the big swing at the next generation of ESPN. He deserves credit for breaking barriers, taking chances, and creating what he calls “the first inning” of what the launch of the new direct-to-consumer product will be.
The marketing for the launch, however, has leaned far too much on what was instead of what is to come. Rich Eisen’s return to SportsCenter is a central example of that: a star of the past coming home. Hosting a former destination program was a small piece of that marketing to a generation that already is there for the network.
Will ESPN’s “first inning” be a home run and go….all…..the…….way?
Only time will tell, and I wish them luck.
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John Mamola is Barrett Media’s sports editor and daily sports columnist. He brings over two decades of experience (Chicago, Tampa/St Petersburg) in the broadcast industry with expertise in brand management, sales, promotions, producing, imaging, hosting, talent coaching, talent development, web development, social media strategy and design, video production, creative writing, partnership building, communication/networking with a long track record of growth and success. He is a five-time recognized top 20 program director in a major market via Barrett Medi’s Top 20 series and has been honored internally multiple times as station/brand of the year (Tampa, FL) and employee of the month (Tampa, FL) by iHeartMedia. Connect with John by email at John@BarrettMedia.com.
