On ESPN, Patrick and Cowherd

I've fallen out of love with ESPN, as many men have. They used to be awesome, back when their focus was sports. Over time, their focus has been personalities who happen to discuss sports, and they've reached to find more and more extreme individuals to fill their TV time, hoping that the Howard Stern approach of "polarized listeners are still listeners because they love to love you or love to hate you" will work for them. But they've lost their identity as a sports information network, and that's sad.

I used to tune in to SportsCenter on a fairly regular basis to get a catch-up on the sports happenings of the day. I still will try from time to time, but what I see is an unwatchable, over-produced and over-spectacular program that is no longer interested in straight information, but is rather geared towards sensationalizing the latest sport scandal and then throwing little bits and pieces of sport in here-and-there, along with an over-generous helping of satirical, often-unfunny commentary by whatever dye-job with a suit is sitting behind the desk.

Back in the days of Dan Patrick and Keith Olbermann and (even) Craig Kilborn, it was understood that the personality was secondary to the sports, and their hijinx were designed to accentuate the experience of watching, not to dominate the show.

ESPN radio has continued to be listenable, since the whole reason to listen to radio is opinions and interviews, which is what radio is best suited for. Both come in generous supply on the radio wing of ESPN, even though too many of the interviews are self-serving throws to ESPN lackies to justify paying them.

Dan Patrick recently announced he was leaving ESPN, and is widely assumed to be preparing to take a job at his brother's company, which will allow him to syndicate and to get bigger money as, essentially, his own brand. A lot of websites have devoted recent posts to figuring out who would replace him, throwing out names like Keith Olbermann (which I never took seriously, since he's got his hands full over with NBC-related ventures, and ESPN is an ABC-related venture), Jason Whitlock (who ESPN apparently has a fatwah against), Mike Tirico (okay but not interesting), and others (I'm not enthused enough today to link to them, but Google the names and you'll find them. Check AOL's FanHouse, which has given a lot of coverage to the topic, or The Big Lead. Links to the right). No one has considered Colin Cowherd as a replacement, which John Canzano took issue with today at his blog (and giving dish as to why he should be considered).

The nation's media columnists are whiffing on the search for Dan Patrick's replacement. Why isn't anyone yet seriously talking, or writing, about Colin Cowherd sliding into the clean-up spot in the ESPN-radio lineup? All I'm reading these days is a bunch of writers backslapping their writer friends, supposing that the Patrick replacement will be from the printworld.

Maybe I'm out of my beat here, but all Cowherd has done is double Tony Kornheiser's ratings, and triple the advertising revenue in the same timeslot. He seems like the obvious choice to me, but we all have our own taste.

. . .

I'm no media columnist, but if you're sourced in Bristol, or cared to make a phone call, you'd quickly learn that Cowherd has already been talked with about the job, and is in the middle of re-negotiating his current deal.

His gig if he wants it, I'm thinking.

Cowherd, for those who've forgotten (or never knew) was last at Portland's 1080 the Fan (although it was 910 AM at the time) and KGW TV before ditching our town for a national job at ESPN Radio. His show now is very similar to his show then, although less regionalized in topics. Lots of opinion, some silly, plenty of tongue-in-cheek. Personality up the ying-yang. But usually thought-provoking to a greater extent than most of ESPN's gabbers.

Personally, I love Cowherd's show. Maybe because I'm a bit of a homer, and I consider him a Portland product (even though he's worked in several markets). But, as Canzano notes, many, many bloggers hate Cowherd. He's gained nicknames like "Schrutebag" (original) and "Cow-Turd" (not so) for using bloggers' material without crediting them, and for directing his listeners to shut down The Big Lead by flooding their site (it worked, they were down for a couple of days), and for sometimes opining on things without doing all of his homework (like bloggers never do that).

Whatever. The fact remains that he's a strong product for ESPN, and I'd be happy if he replaced Patrick. My only reservation? Who would take over AM drive-time for them? Would we start getting "Mike and Mike" on tape delay here? The Herd would have to be, as we won't move Jim Rome from his current slot.

If you have suggestions, let Dennis at The Fan know.