COLIN COWHERD AND MICHELLE BEADLE
Monday marked the debut of SportsNation on ESPN 2. The show is an Internet and caller themed and driven show that air’s weekdays at 4:00 p.m. (1 p.m. Pacific Time) and is hosted by Colin Cowherd and Michelle Beadle. That’s right, the all-time least popular radio talk show host in the history of the Internet is now doing a show about the Internet. Genius work, ESPN.
The first show was a little flat. It was designed to be “fast moving.” Instead, the program comes across as patronizing and stilted. SportsNation talks down to its viewers who it obviously views as REALLY STUPID. The design of the show is for people on ESPN.com to vote on two possible choices on a variety of subjects. The show also takes callers on the topics. Among the choices on Monday’s show:
Vote: Would you boo or cheer Manny Ramirez? (59% said boo)
Vote: Should ESPN show more competitive eating? (only 24% said yes)
Vote: Would it be fun to hang with Roger Federer? (54% said no)
The show also encourages audience participation by phone, online poll, or Twitter. In truly one of the dumbest ideas in television history, callers are invited to phone in pretending to be a famous athlete.
What’s truly amazing is how pathetic the vote totals on the first show were. If you can only get 7,ooo people nationwide to give an opinion on Manny Ramirez, then maybe this show doesn’t deserve to exist.
Also, for a guy who spent the majority of his career in television, Cowherd comes across as awkward,gangly and uncomfortable on tv. It’s also possible that he’s a manorexic. Beadle is so blonde and talentless she really should be reading news on the Fox News Channel.
Unquestionably, though, the absolute highlight of the show was the viewer reaction during the postshow recap. Online reader/viewer posts were invited by Cowherd and Beadle and gathered under the show’s “Post Your Comment” section. The comments are, in a word, BRUTAL.
ACTUAL PHOTO OF COWHERD’S FIRST SPORTSNATION SHOW
Cowherd is savaged by the SportsNation viewers. The comments are literally 100/1 against Cowherd. Here’s a sample:
“Bring back Stephen A. Smith”
“Joe Buck”
“Vote: which show is more of a trainwreck Sportsnation or Cop Rock?”
“We are just ripping the show because it is terrible…”
“Drop the fake calls bit”
“That show was horrible mostly due to Cowherd”
“not good”
“I give it two weeks”
“Boy does this show suck and I’m a loyal HERD listener”
The site had so many negative posts in a row that you can actually tell where several ESPN employees were forced to plant positive comments online.
Keep in mind SportsNation got absolutely zero promotion by ESPN. If sports websites like Deadspin, The Big Lead, and Awful Announcing (sites that truly HATE the guy) were aware that Cowherd was debuting a new tv show on Monday, they would have driven their readers to the ESPN site and the negative comments would literally have been 100,000/1.
It’s hard to believe Cowherd set himself up for such a debacle. Whatever your criticisms of him are, Cowherd is a good radio host and his strengths are 1.) he is success driven and 2.) he usually has a pretty good read on media and pop culture.
Despite those attributes, this show is doomed. It’s failure is absolutely guaranteed and the reason exposes Cowherd’s utter lack of self awareness. The entire demographic of SportsNation already hates Cowherd because of his highly publicized feuds with bloggers and Internet sites. Cowherd seems to have no idea of how much Internet people hate him. All he would need to do to find out is google himself. Hint to ESPN: Hiring a guy who can’t google to run your new ”Internet driven” show is a REALLY stupid idea.
The programming people at ESPN all need to be fired. They haven’t come up with a successful program for the ESPN franchise in nearly a decade. The only reason Jim Rome and shows like “Around the Horn” and “Pardon the Interruption” are still on the air is that the current programming heads at ESPN are too stupid to come up with anything else. The last time they even tried we got Stephen A. Smith’s “Quite Frankly.”
The only positive thing you can say about SportsNation is that it’s not the Scott Van Pelt Show. That was the other piece of ESPN 2 programming which debuted on Monday. Whoever thought that watching a sycophant and station-promoting stooge and toadie like Van Pelt do radio would make compelling television is even dumber than the geniuses who came up with SportsNation.
Tags: Colin Cowherd, ESPN, Michelle Beadle, Sportsnation
July 7, 2009 at 1:30 am |
The contempt the suits at Bristol have for their customers is never ending.
August 19, 2009 at 2:51 pm |
Unwatchable!
August 21, 2009 at 10:08 pm |
Oh how it sucks to be you losers. The show is getting great ratings. Colin and Michelle are getting great reviews, you know, from people that matter, not bloggers who get upset when someone disagrees with them. ESPN has already started to play the show at PT on the west coast because of the demand. So I hate to tell you but this show is probably going to start being one of ESPN mainstay programs during FB season, probably showing right alongside with Monday Night Countdown. It’s funny how a blogger HATES a show that is all based on the average fans opinion. So you give it two weeks. So you are wrong.
November 9, 2009 at 7:18 pm |
The show is absolutely unwatchable. Zero chemistry btwn the two and utterly no real humor or insight. Sophmoric would be one way to sum it up. I had to find some place to vent on this even now. I can’t stand even running by it as I move around some espn channels. It’s that bad. He’s decent on radio, but beyond that, well, that’s it. I have to say I understand why he’s divorced. I pity his ex….
November 9, 2009 at 7:21 pm |
2 words: Unwatchable. Sophmoric. More? Not funny, not insightful, awkward,….