ESPN not just TV but an addiction

ESPN’s flagship show, SportsCenter, airs periodically throughout the day until the wee hours of the night, but the general consensus answer to the classic question, ‘which is your SportsCenter?’ remains: the first show upon waking up.

“I am generally more of a, when I wake up and 1 a.m. kind of guy,” said third-year business student Jarrett Nobles. Fellow junior business student, Derrick Thomas proclaimed, “I’m a when I wake up at 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. watcher.”

The ESPN networks and franchise provides enough insightful, in-depth coverage and analysis to please any fan.

“If it isn’t SportsCenter, it’s ESPN.com, PTI (Pardon the Interruption), Baseball Tonight, everything,” said Morgan.

While the specifics may vary, the non-stop flow of current sports information remains a constant for these and all other worldwide ESPN fanatics.

And how could one help but fall under the spell of “The Worldwide Leader in Sports?” ESPN is worldwide, with over 50 business entities including ESPN The Magazine, seven domestic cable TV stations (and 30 international stations,) ESPN radio and even the ESPN Zone restaurants, to name a few.

Launched Sept. 7, 1979, ESPN has extended its network to reach over 89 million subscribers, with the primary target audience being the male demographic, ages 18-34. For these loyal fanatics, it has extended far beyond a habit and is now a way of life.

“Being in Tallahassee in general makes me feel removed from the world, so if I go a day without sports, I definitely feel like I’m missing something,” said Thomas. “If I miss anything, any news, the latest trade rumors, I just feel behind.”

“Really, I don’t ever have those types of days,” commented Nobles regarding a day without ESPN.

With a plethora of available media, no one should be faced with that problem. The website itself, www.espn.com, averages 945 million visits per month, with an 82 percent male audience. These are not just fanatics who live their life pondering the latest sporting news. In fact, 84-percent of website visitors are college educated, 73-percent are employed full-time and 41-percent are professionals or in management positions.

“ESPN.com reaches a new generation of young, educated, affluent males,” according to the website.

Some fanatics plan to take their fascination with sports into their professional life. “I want to become a sports agent, or eventually a general manager whether it be for a baseball, basketball or football team,” said Nobles.

Nobles also decided to open up his wealth of sports knowledge to the FAMU public at www.facebook.com. He started a group “Sports Opinions,” an open forum for students to air out their ideas, concerns and predictions relating to the world of sports.

The ESPN franchise can serve to be a great focal point of the day. It can serve to be a great conversation starter, but for some, it can even be a great distraction. There are ESPN fanatics lurking at every turn. It is a serious condition that, if not taken care of, can effortlessly eat up hours of the day.

In reading this article, some may wonder whether the symptoms of being an ESPN fanatic apply to them. The answer is found in a fairly simple equation: list, in detail, ten non-sport related current events. Then, list 10 big name off-season NBA impact trades. Which answer came easier? Enough said.

Contact Reggie Snowden at famuansports@hotmail.com