I've written a few articles about different sportswriters, pundits, and announcers that I like or don't like, but I haven't looked much at the those who deliver the sportswriters, pundits, and announcers to us as a whole.
I'm thinking specifically about the announcers here, as I grade each of the sports channels and the sports bureaus of the major over-the-air networks.
ESPN/ABC
At least in terms of volume, they aren't the Worldwide Leader for nothing. You may not like the hype they produce or the influence they wield, but you can't really complain abut the volume of actual sports content they deliver. ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPN360, ESPN Gameplan and Full Court, as well as their magazine and website, they just buy up the contracts of as many sports and then deliver them.
For that, they will always be high in my book. Plus, most of their anchors, analysts, and announcers are more hit (Kirk Herbstreit, Bill Raftery) than misses (Dick Vitale, Stephen A. Smith). The hype, I can ignore. The odious "ESPN Original Programming," I can ignore. The scapegoating for the sports world grievance du jour, I can especially ignore.
GRADE: B+
FOX Sports (non-cable)
Ugh. When I think of hype, I don't think ESPN, I think Fox. The graphics. The noise. The Joe Buck. The Tim McCarver. The weirdness of them owning most of the BCS bowl rights even though they don't show regular season college football. The fact that they relegated the Fiesta Bowl to Matt Vasgersian and Tim Ryan, which is their end-of-the-bench NFL duo. If the sports broadcasting world was a cocktail party, FOX Sports would be the guy with the greasy, curly mullet drinking Busch Beer and wearing Zubaz pants. In other words, it would be Tony Siragusa.
GRADE: D-
CBS
When I was a kid, and CBS had the NFC and NBC had the AFC, CBS was the more hard-hitting, testosterone-laden coverage, while NBC was more reserved and traditional. Now with the NFC on FOX and the AFC on CBS, they have reversed roles.
But that's a good thing. They are the clear leader on a number of sports — golf, college basketball, perhaps the NFL — as well as a lack of bombast. They also took over College Sports Television (CSTV), and did a great job of improving it (it's now "CBS College Sports.")
GRADE: A
NBC
Of the major networks, they seem to be the least interested in and invested in sports. The NBC Sports website lags far behind its peers, and until they got Sunday Night Football, they had gone years without placing a successful bid on a sport more notable than hockey. What did Bob Costas do with his time? I suppose they put all of their sports eggs in the Olympics basket, but I don't give them credit for that because it's only a couple of weeks every two years, and for their streaming web content, they made the dreadful decision to partner with Microsoft and utilize Microsoft Silverlight, which messed up many a computer, including mine.
But I do like their treatment of SNF. I don't know who made the decision to make SNF the marquee evening game and MNF the booby prize that mediocre teams appear on (it used to be the opposite), but NBC has done well with it, treating the weekly game with reverence without teetering to over-seriousness. I also appreciate that they didn't get cute when it came time to announce the SNF booth team.
GRADE: B-
FOX Sports Regional
I'm going ahead and going to grade this differently than the main FOX brand (which I did not do for ESPN/ABC) because it's a completely different animal.
It is better than its big brother, but that's not saying much.
The model is interesting, and I think a good one: lead the way in local sports markets for game coverage, and nationally syndicate some more games (ACC Sunday Night Hoops, Big 12/Pac 10 football) and send it to most or all those affiliates. It's not an original idea, however. FOX Sports Regional rose from the ashes of the similar SportsChannel America.
FSR's biggest problem is it comes off as very low budget (which it surely is) with cheap production values. They desperately need to put in a winning bid for some major professional sport on a non-local basis, even hockey. Many of the specific regional networks don't even have their own webpage. Their college brand, the three-channel FO College Sports, is a complete joke that doesn't even deserve mentioned in the same sentence as ESPNU and CBS College Sports (Northern Arizona basketball, anyone?). But they do have some nice announcers, like the team of Barry Tompkins and Petros Papadakis.
GRADE: C
Versus
The new kid on the block. Their programming lineup reminds me a bit of early-'80s ESPN. They are just trying to get their hands on whatever table scraps they can (rodeo, hockey, non-BCS conference college football and basketball) and do an earnest job with it. I also give them credit for creating the first sports-themed "Best Week Ever"-type show, which has been screaming to be done for years.
GRADE: Incomplete
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