[image source: ESPN, but ironically]

That title is a bit abrasive and I get that. It’s also not entirely accurate. There are certainly some ESPN programs that are great and I enjoy. Pardon the Interruption, though I haven’t watched it in over a year, used to be a great show and is still probably a great show. Around the Horn was okay when I used to watch it.

But the simple fact is that ESPN TV programming now, by and large, sucks and there is no reason for you to watch it.

Now, caveat time: ESPN, in general, does have its positives. I check out its website for news quite regularly. It’s Instagram account is great for highlights of the previous day’s events. It’s Twitter account is great for breaking news. They have so many local affiliates that give truly great content to their areas (here’s looking at you 102.5 radio station in Nashville). I’m only talking about TV here. There isn’t a reason to really watch ESPN TV shows anymore. And that sucks.

I grew up on Sports Center. I grew up watching Mike and Mike before going to school. I lived for the Top Ten. Now, I couldn’t tell you the last time I cared about what Sports Center had to say.

Too often Sports Center cares more about politics and the social drama surrounding a league than the actual games. I don’t know about you, but I couldn’t care less if the players kneel for the anthem or what shirt Kaepernick decided to wear. But ESPN will spend two full days discussing only that. I can watch an hour of Sports Center and not hear the results of a single game. I could watch Stephen A. Smith yell about racism for 30 minutes without even mentioning a sport.

Don’t get me wrong: these are important issues that need to be discussed. Regardless of your personal opinions on it, we can all agree that there is a racial tension in this country that needs to be, at minimum, discussed.

Just not on my sports shows.

Sports are wonderful. They are the beautiful place you can go to escape from the world and the incessant bickering of journalist and politicians. It’s a place to just watch athletes be athletic, root as hard as you possibly can for your team, crap on your rivals, and celebrate every victory. It’s beautiful, it’s fun, and it’s an escape. Now ESPN intrudes on that escape.

They also very rarely cover a wide variety of topics. They will hit the major sports stories, which makes sense, but I want it all. We are a culture of endless and instant information. The days of only hearing about the Patriots and Packers should be long behind us. I don’t want to know what just the best teams are doing, because I often don’t support the best teams and I know what they are doing: they are winning. The Nuggets are doing great right now, so I’m sure they’ve been talked about, but in prior years I could watch every single day and hear the Nuggets mentioned maybe once in a year.

My main point is this: we don’t have to do it anymore. In prior days, we had no choice. It was hearing the sports news from ESPN or wait until you bumped into your friend who will tell you around the water cooler at work or the lockers in school. That’s not the way we live anymore. I can check the score of any game instantly from my phone. I can hop on Reddit and hear the wildest and craziest of hot takes from any fan of any team in the world. I can browse through Instagram to see endless highlights of every game. I can check online blogs for any team I could think of and find someone writing an opinion piece about a recent loss or about a recent trade. I can start my own sports blog and talk about whatever I want.

I can hear the opinions of experts on every team. That’s huge.

We don’t have to rely on one commentator, whether it’s Stephen A. or Skip, to know everything going on around every team in every league to hear opinions. I can grab my iPhone right now, search for a Timberwolves podcast, and find options to listen to people who are fully committed to knowing everything going on in that organization talk about it. I don’t have to rely on someone who researched it for 30 minutes and then talked about it, I can listen to people who live and breathe the organization, and have their entire lives, give their opinions on it. And that’s so much more impactful. The ESPN commentators probably aren’t massive fans of every sport. There will be teams and sports they care about more, so they won’t, just naturally, be as informed on the other teams/sports. That’s not the case with online blogs and podcasts. There will always be options for you if you want an expert on that team’s opinion about something.

I subscribe to podcasts of all of my favorite teams, so several times a week I can listen to people who love those teams talk about everything surrounding those teams without having to worry about the other teams. Or I can find a solid, broad sports podcast with people who are actually entertaining and can say whatever they want without worrying about offending listeners.

It’s a whole wide world of sports-related content available at our fingertips. We don’t have to pay attention to ESPN anymore. And thank God for that.