Disney paid a lot of money for the TV rights to everything that goes on in the SEC. On Saturday, you saw why. Oklahoma bested LSU on ABC to secure a spot in the College Football Playoff. On ESPN, Diego Pavia cemented his spot at the Heisman Trophy ceremony in New York. Back on ABC, Alabama survived another unpredictable Iron Bowl to advance to the SEC Championship Game in Atlanta.
The network’s investment in the ACC paid off, too. Cal upset SMU on ESPN2. College football sickos could watch a thriller between Wake Forest and Duke. That was followed by NC State absolutely humiliating Bill Belichick and UNC in the final game of the year. Both of those games were on the ACC Network.
But, as someone who spends all day on Saturdays neglecting my family and watching college football, the message I got from ESPN all day long was that none of it matters, because wrestling’s on tonight!
In every quarter and at the start of every studio segment, I was reminded that football is fine, but what you really should be watching is Survivor Series: War Games. Even as we all hung on poor Marty Smith’s every word from a conference room at the Ole Miss football facility, waiting to hear where Lane Kiffin would be taking his talents, we were told that we should really drop everything and go to the app to watch some Mysterio that isn’t Rey.
Just like with the SEC, Disney paid a lot of money to be in bed with the WWE. I get why. It’s bigger, event programming for the company’s new app, and brings over a large, loyal audience. It’s also just good TV. I’m not going to sit here and tell you that just because the outcomes are predetermined, that wrestling is fake. Those men and women are real athletes who endure real wear and tear. To quote Jim Cornette, “Ain’t nothing fake about that.”
Let’s be clear, though. Just because professional wrestling involves great athletic skill, it does not mean it’s a sport. The debate comes to a screeching halt at that “predetermined outcome.” Competition is the very base definition of what is and isn’t a sport. How can there be competition when the outcomes are predetermined?
That predetermined outcome makes WWE fundamentally different from anything else that ESPN carries, so the emphasis ESPN puts on promoting the WWE fundamentally changes ESPN.
Even before officially partnering with WWE, ESPN was in the midst of a real wrestling-ification of its programming. Joe Tessitore spends Saturdays in the fall at a Power 4 football game and Mondays ringside for WWE Raw on Netflix. Pat McAfee brings the swagger and mic skills he learned from watching and performing in the WWE to everything he does on ESPN. First Take is not a sports show anymore. It’s where Stephen A. Smith develops and furthers his storyline, and surprise celebrity run-ins happen. I may never have rolled my eyes harder than I did back in September when Pat McAfee gave an earnest breakdown of John Cena vs. Brock Lesnar on College GameDay.
Times change, and networks and shows have to change with them. I get that, but this isn’t even the same network as it was when it got its hooks into so many of us. I’m not saying I need everything to be Outside the Lines, but ESPN used to be where sports were taken seriously. Now, every minute of programming is just inventory, especially during the week of a – what are we calling them now? Premium Live Event?
For all of the handwringing about ESPN’s gambling partnerships and the inclusion of lines and spreads into its coverage of everything, where is the concern when it comes to the WWE? If someone is worried that the network is encouraging people to bet on who makes the College Football Playoff, something that it has outsized influence over, shouldn’t that person be concerned by the network’s embrace and promotion of an event with predetermined outcomes? If we’re doing the slippery slope thing, both can lead to questions about the sanctity of the games on the screen.
It’s not the WWE being on an ESPN platform that I have a problem with. I’ll admit, it’s not what I want from ESPN, but I’m smart enough to know I don’t speak for the whole audience. My problem is the way the network has completely sold out to the WWE. The biggest football, basketball, and hockey games are treated like an appetizer when there is a WWE event on the app.
Maybe 24 hours of traditional sports programming isn’t enough for the modern audience. That’s fine, and if that’s the case, the evolution is understandable, but ESPN’s pendulum has swung so far away from what made sports fans loyal to the network in the first place and towards something that simply isn’t a sport. That strategy is something I simply cannot wrap my brain around.
About Demetri Ravanos