Back to the innocent days of ESPN

The news this past week of massive layoffs at ESPN triggered memories of a much different time.

I get that people like to rag on ESPN these days — partially because, well, people just like to rag on things.

Some people just want the scores and the highlights, with a little flavor mixed in.

Two people shouting at each other under the guise of “debate” is interesting for a while — but after a while, it just becomes a lot of noise.

Skip and Screamin’ A were watchable. But then Skip took his act to some JV channel and now, the temptation is to stay on “Live with Kelly.”

Eeeeeeewwwwwwwwww!

People tend to forget that, not that long ago, there was no ESPN. There were no other specialty sports networks. You got 2, 4 and 6 and liked it.

(Update: OK, so it WAS long ago. Nearly 40 years. Young’ins just expect to have many choices for their sports consumption. But it wasn’t always that way.)

REMEMBER BACK when ESPN first came along in 1979, cable TV was a new and exciting thing. More than just three channels! More choices! USA Network! HBO!

Of course, that was back before the days of remotes, and you actually had to get off your you-know-what to change the channel. You had to be careful if you were walking across carpet, lest you ZAP! yourself on the channel dial.

Cable wasn’t much better back then, but at least they put a box on top of the TV with its own dial.

But you still had to get up to change the channel.

“Hey, Julie. Don’t you think it’s time to feed the cat?”

“And while you’re at it, can you change the channel to ESPN? Thanks!”

PEOPLE EXPECT some form of SportsCenter whenever they want these days — be it the original show, or something like it on ESPNEWS, or NFL Live, or Baseball To ... oh, that’s right.

Back then, you often had to wait up until 12:30 a.m. to catch a 30-minute SportsCenter that wrapped up the day’s programming. You hung on every highlight and every word from the likes of Chris Berman, Bob Ley, Tom Mees, George Grande, “Backstretch” Lou Palmer (ah yes, those nicknames from the “Boomer”). Then, right after the show, ESPN signed off for the night.

Before that, you got what you got from the local guys on the 11 o’clock news.

Or George Michael’s Sports Machine.

No, not that George Michael.

ESPN showed college basketball before showing college basketball was cool. The WWL helped invent the Big East Conference, bringing to the nation what previously were regional heated rivalry games involving the likes of Georgetown, St. John’s, Syracuse and some other team whose name I can’t recall.

ESPN showed NCAA games around the clock, from Thursday through Sunday. Previously, the networks wouldn’t dare show the tournament until the weekend.

After ESPN showed as many NCAA tourney games as it could in the 1980s, CBS paid heavily to NOT show as many games from Thursday through Sunday of the first weekend.

Eventually, they farmed out tourney games to three other channels, so fans could again watch the games they wanted.

It only took a quarter century.

Locally, ESPN has played a role in all of Gonzaga’s men’s basketball games being televised in recent years, and a handful of games are on the World Wide Leader. Though even without ESPN, the Zags are so popular around here they probably could form their own network and accomplish the same thing.

ZAG TV.

It’s seldom good to see people lose their jobs — especially when it’s some incredible talent cut loose by the World Wide Leader. The one good thing that could come from this is that some of that talent could filter down to the lesser cable outlets, and improve their shows.

So yeah, there’s probably a little too much Entertainment and not enough Sports on this Programming Network, but it could be worse.

It wasn’t too long ago — OK, it was more than a little while ago — where you essentially got nothing and liked it.

Mark Nelke is sports editor of The Press. He can be reached at 664-8176, Ext. 2019, or via email at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter@CdAPressSports.