You would be hard-pressed to find anybody who would
dispute ESPN's self-proclaimed declaration of being "The Worldwide Leader
in Sports." In fact, this is a very simple thing to claim when you have
the resources, and as a result, the access ESPN has across the major sports
leagues. In a perfect world ESPN would be my one stop shopping for all of my
sports information needs, but that has not been the case for me for the past 3
to 4 years. I can't put my finger on exactly what it was that made me greatly
reduce my viewing of ESPN programs, but whenever I think of ESPN I think of TimTebow, Lebron James, and Skip Bayless, and it shouldn't be like that.
I started paying more attention to the NBC Sports Network
(NBCSN) because of my daily habit of watching sports radio talk shows on TV. My
day started out with Boomer and Carton, followed by Dan Patrick, then Mike
Francesca, or Scott Van Pelt and Ryen Russillo, depending on if the latter two
were being broadcast on a cable channel I subscribe to. As I was assigned more
work in both my job and at school, I didn't have as much time to tune into all
of these, so I stuck with “The Dan Patrick Show” as the one I wouldn't miss. This
meant spending a lot of time watching NBCSN, and sticking with the programming
they provided because it was a nice change of pace from all the other shows
that seem to pride themselves on yelling at each other as well as their viewers/listeners.
NBC Sports has always been a Goliath with its coverage of
the Olympics, the NBA on NBC, and its coverage of the NHL when nobody else wanted
to cover it. It wasn't until recently that NBCSN came to be, and the way it
came to be was through a rebrand. Before it was NBCSN, it was the Outdoor Life
Network, followed by Versus, and they were both a part of a division of NBC
Sports. Once Comcast came in via a merger, all of the sports associated with
NBC would have some type of program on NBCSN.
NBCSN’s parent company NBCUniversal says this about
itself on the company's website. "NBCUniversal is one of the world's
leading media and entertainment companies in the development, production, and
marketing of entertainment, news and information to a global audience." While
ESPN claims to be "The Worldwide Leaders In Sports," NBCSN is the
network that seems to have far more coverage of sports taking place around the
world. This network covers the British Premier League, the Tour de France, Formula
One Racing, and the Olympics, and that's just a few of the major international
sporting events they have listed. It's safe to say that even though it's a
small part of NBCUniversal, they are definitely following through on what the
company expects.
I chose NBCSN as my brand because I like the chances they
take with their programming because it comes across as authentic, and because I
am a big fan of most of the personalities and talents that they employ. Rohit Bhargava wrote about the ways to be
authentic in Personality Not Included,
and one of the major ideas behind this is to "Foster Individuals Instead
of People." It's easy to turn on any sports network and find company
"yes men" who are a dime a dozen. I know that NBCSN is not perceived
as a threat to overtake ESPN, but that's why I am drawn to it. I'd much rather
watch programming that allows individuals to put on something that will
separate themselves from everybody else. I don't want to be yelled at, I don't
want to feel there's an agenda behind why a certain player or team is over
covered, I just want to be told what happened and I want to be entertained. Here
is a perfect example of individuality on NBCSN. I close with a link to a video clip from Men In Blazers, a TV show that I have an
immense amount of respect for because of how unique it is. It's a small part of why I chose to cover NBCSN.
