Bats and Balls and ... Boosting the Brand?
Imagine The New York Times owning half of the Broadway theaters whose plays it reviews. Or imagine CNN paying billions of dollars for exclusive multiyear rights to cover the War in Iraq. Imagine the temptation to recoup investment by piquing advance interest and prolonging the runs of plays and wars.
Why the comparison? Because ESPN watchers are starting to see curious dips in hockey coverage now that ESPN doesn't have a contract with the NHL, and rises in coverage of their new broadcast partners NASCAR and the Arena Football League (AFL). Not quite Broadway and Iraq, but you get the idea.
To address the NHL concerns, she talks with a member of the ESPN corporate brass and reports that:
"We compared all the 1 a.m. shows during March 2007 with all the 1 a.m. shows in March 2004, the last year ESPN had hockey rights," said Craig Lazarus, vice president of studio productions, whose responsibilities include overseeing all productions of SportsCenter. "We found that in March 2004, hockey accounted for 20 percent of the Top Ten highlights. In March 2007, the percentage was 18 percent."Why the 1 a.m. show? Because it's "the show with the heaviest emphasis on highlights and events coverage." Why just the Top Ten highlight list and not overall air-time? We don't know, because apparently Schreiber didn't ask.
After this, she walks readers through the reasons and rationalizations for NASCAR and Arena Football League coverage. She then closes with a statement that creates more questions than answers:
ESPN may not be a monolith, but it often appears to be one. Especially when launching new endeavors like Arena Football or NASCAR or Major League Soccer, someone at ESPN, perhaps everyone at ESPN, should be aware of the appearance of overzealous promotion. Synergy can backfire. (Emphasis mine)Exactly. The synergy's the thing. But beyond 'this sport versus that sport,' Schreiber doesn't examine other occasional and questionable content decisions ESPN makes that benefit corporate parent Disney.
Why, in early April – with the NBA and NHL playoffs and Major League Baseball beginning – did "SportsCenter" and ESPN's morning show "Cold Pizza" decide that former basketball star Clyde Drexler's appearance on Disney-owned ABC's "Dancing With the Stars" warranted substantial attention? Or how about former NBA journeyman John Amaechi's book "Man in the Middle" (from publisher ESPN Books) becoming the centerpiece for hours of ESPN TV and radio discussion a few months ago? And lastly, why did ESPN invite movie stars like Owen Wilson and Michael Keaton to crash their normal jocks-only banter (on "Quite Frankly and "SportsCenter," respectively) when they were plugging the film "Cars" from Disney's Pixar studios?
I appreciate Le Ann Schreiber's closer look at the basketball-or-hockey decisions made behind the scenes. But if she's going to investigate ESPN's conflicts of interest, I hope she will take a more comprehensive look in a future column.
(Note to reader: CBS Public Eye has raised our own collective eyebrows at the content decisions of CBS' "The Early Show.")