ESPN has become so self-important that they can waste 10 minutes of our time covering a press conference for a guy that didn’t play, namely Brett Favre.
That’s exactly what the Worldwide Leader did on Monday night immediately following Baltimore’s thrilling overtime win against Houston.
Instead of going to the highlights of perhaps the best game of the whole weekend, ESPN went to a tape of Favre’s post game presser after the Vikings got their lunches handed to them by the Giants.
ESPN continued to air Favre’s presser after announcing that free agent pitcher Cliff Lee had rejected the Yankees six-year, $138 million offer during SportsCenter’s introduction.
Talk about misplaced priorities.
After Favre told the world that he couldn’t play because of an injured shoulder – something we knew several hours before kickoff – the ESPN ticker flashed a “Breaking News” alert: Cliff Lee signs with the Phillies.
In the span of less than five minutes, there were two major developments in the world of sports and ESPN didn’t see fit to cut away from Favre’s presser.
I get the fact Favre’s consecutive starts streak came to an end on Monday. On most other days it would have been worth covering, but not when we’re talking about a team like Minnesota that’s been out of the playoff race for a month.
And Favre’s streak and especially his thoughts on the subject could have waited until after coverage of the Ravens OT win and the details of Lee’s deal with the Phillies had been announced.
The Ravens-Texans game ended around midnight east coast time, meaning a lot of people were asleep when Baltimore won it when Josh Wilson intercepted a Matt Schaub pass and walked 12 yards to the end zone.
Some viewers probably didn’t know the game was once a blowout, but the Texans staged a furious comeback after they were down 28-7 early in the third quarter.
Phillies’ fans are going to be really happy to hear that Lee signed a five-year, $100 million deal with Philadelphia. It’s not often a player shuns the Yankees like that but Lee proved to be the exception.
But hey, ESPN can put all of that on the back burner until Favre tells us everything we already knew about his banged up shoulder.
I don’t know who was producing the late Monday night SportsCenter, but if a situation like that develops again perhaps the guy might want to identify what’s really important.
Thanks ESPN!
