James Brown is "the black dude".

Curt Menefee instead of Brown and Jimmy Johnson is they dude you are forgetting.

I'll give 'em a shot. ESPN's act is tired.

Trying to do too much...
Sports enter is solid, if unspectacular. Bob Ley's show is decent. Obviously live sports are great. But the talk shows are ridiculous, and I can't imagine anyone watches them (though I assume they do, as they keep rolling out more).
That said, they are becoming the victim of the same thing every other traditional news outlet is. I can get my news in a more personally tailored, and efficient manner at the touch of my fingers. I can hear discussions I actually want to hear about by more discriminantly choosing podcasts. I can listen to local sports radio, even if I don't live in the locale I want to hear about. And now there is a stand alone network for the four major US sports.
I think their knee jerk reactions to this has been to try more and more to bring in "casual" fans with comedy and talk. Add to that, running home to the "mama" of preaching nearly exclusively to the New York audience.
What I (humbly) think they SHOULD do, is go back to their roots. Run those third tier sports more. Replay games. Pick up a patchwork of niches, rather than trying to be vanilla and get everything. I find myself watching rugby on the NBC sports network. I find myself watching NBA D-league and summer games. I truly wish there was more access to NHL, like there used to be. Hell, I don't even mind watching poker now and again. Just stop trying to be MTV. Be a sports network. Show more actual sports, rather than more people making sports jokes.

Here are the guys that Fox hired to do their SportsCenter
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/LiIZpGZIKGM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

To be honest, outside of watching some college basketball and NFL games I almost never even tune into ESPN. I've gotten to the point that I pretty much just watch the teams I like, and since none of them are on the East coast I don't have to turn to ESPN very often. I get all of my sports news from here and the web.

Man, I remember when ESPN first came out. There was no programming. They literally had shows of Strongest Man Competition where dudes would roll massive tires down the street. Roy Firestone would give his tear-inducing interviews wearing that blue-ish blazer. They'd have replays of "Home Run Derby" from the 1950s in black & white.


The product really changed when they landed MLB in the later part of the 1980s. Now they have MNF obviously. I can't believe people think the new format sucks when you should've seen the old!

I haven't watched sports center in months. Their coverage will always be there but the news portion of ESPN is not great.

Talent gets expensive and ESPN lets them go. Not sure that's their problem but I can't think it helps.

Yeah but there was nothing like sitting at a bar at 1:00 AM, drunk off your rear, watching The World's Strongest Man!! Good times.

Useless network nowadays. Used to watch it quite a bit. Now it's well down the list and only when I can't find anything else to watch.

Hey PB they just went through a big layoff.

**** ESPN.

They created their bed now they can go die in it.

Live sports - Awesome

30 for 30 - Awesome

College Gameday - Good

Everything else including all other pre/post-game coverage - Absolute garbage

The End.

They can stick First Take up their ass.

I'd rather watch flies ****

I used to watch the old home run derby shows when I was in grade school. Those were cool.

+1