ESPN Ignores The Cubs

(from a past thread)

Watching Sportscenter this AM, the little sidebar read (with my one liner opines)

Penguins-Flyers – what a GAME .. any hockey fan would have to agree
Game 5 – go Pengies – I hate any team from Detroit
David Ortiz – surprised they didn’t have a live reporter outside his home
Pacman Jones – slap on the wrist
Terrell Owens – a showboat who can deliver
Cubs-Padres

Ah, Al is right .. Cub Nation, remember where you were this past weekend!

I think that might have been the order there but I think they were rerunning an earlier version so the Cubs game was not final. All I wanted were Cubs highlights but instead I learn that Marco Scutaro had the only really hard hit ball off Joba. It was a warning track flyball. Wow.

I just wish there was some other way to get baseball highlights at 6:30 in the morning.

Keep ignoring them, I dont care. Just keep winning

I think playing in san diego is a big reason why the win streak isn’t in the headlines of Sportscenter. Though of course if it was Yankees/Red Sox/Mets they would cover their streak. Any other team would get the same treatment as the Cubs.

Eastern Seaboard Programing Network

...keep winning, who cares if ESPN ignores us? It’s their loss. Think of the inherent business attractions of being behind Cubs Nation.

Did you notice that stories 1-3 all have NY connections? I’ll bet they also covered something to do with Hillary. :) ...Again, that’s their loss. – TL

After reading this, it’s obvious Joba should have been stories 1-4.

I think what’s lost in all of this Eastern Seaboard Programming Network anger is the fact Chicago isn’t the biggest sports market out there… I think we’re 3rd to New York and LA… and although we PROBABLY have a larger fan base than either market (even though we share teams as well) the viewership in those areas is far greater than what we get here in Chicago. PLUS everyone has seen the Cubs crumble before, so maybe they’re just not ready to invest yet? I don’t know about you guys, but when they were down 9-1 and came back, well let’s just say I pulled the jersey’s out of the closet and put the Cubs flag back up at my house…

Good. We don’t want them either.

the Cubs are the third article:

Celizic: Nerves aside, Joba can handle job
Pedro shines on mound, at plate, in return
Cubs batter Padres for ninth straight victory

I haven’t had cable for 5-6 years now, and though I do miss watching baseball on TV, I don’t miss watching ESPN. Like most news channels, its biased towards a select group of people.

Eventually, the people will start talking about the Cubs. Somethings you can only hold back for so long…

and yesterday’s and today’s episodes are completely about Joba. They only change the subject when they have to answer fan email. East coast bias is wonderful.

I’d add the Ozzie Guillen thing higher than Joba Chamberlain too.

For perspective I went and found my video covering Kerry’s major league debut. He was the highest touted prospect in baseball when he arrived. Not even close to the coverage.

here locally. I would assume this blows more for Cubs fans outside of IL. Generally speaking though, I’m ok flying under the radar….don’t want to be that whining Chicago sports fan like all the Sox fans were that one year.

marmol > joba

I was angry with ESPN not showing the Cubs much, but looking at it now I’m glad. Let them overlook this team and we will slowly compile the wins and head towards our first championship in 100 years. Keep us off the main page. Keep us out of Sports Illustrated, we will take our WGN coverage and be happy. If ESPN isn’t running an article on us being the “lovable losers” they don’t know what to do.

Chicago is a bigger market than Boston. Yet, the Red Sox get more coverage on ESPN than the Cubs. BTW, I’ve always thought of Chicago as a really big city. #3 in market size should qualify for big market status. Being based in Bristol, CT, is no excuse for over covering the Yankees and Red Sox. I can see why the Memphis Grizzlies, being a bad NBA team in a Lilliputian market, get very little coverage. The Cubs, being a good team in a big market, should get more coverage.

Numbers 1, 2, and 3 are all bigger stories than the Cubs beating the worst team in the NL.

What’s not to love about the Joba story? It reeks of Steinbrenner hubris, which is something baseball fans universally love to roll their eyes about.

ESPN has given the Cubs a fair bit of coverage and lavished the team with praise most of the season. I’m not going to come out and say there’s no east coast bias there, because I do think there tends to be, but I don’t think that this is necessarily evidence of that and it certainly isn’t worthy of hyperbolic “disgust.”

ESPN drives me insane period. even Baseball Tonite is all about the AL. The cubs could win out the rest of there break all the records in baseball and yet the AL would get all the coverage and the cubs would get an 12 second highlight. Because we have good players and none of them are wild and crazy and talk and B*H about all the things wrong with the team we fly under the radar. We will just keep winning and show the “nation” the cubs rule and so do cub fans!!!

.. it’s outrage of real baseball fans about a supposedly “real” sports channel .. for whom two baseball franchises are the center of their programming universe thanks to moronic production values drawn from heads stuffed in the sand . .

SC mentioned our magic number. In June.

ESPN drowns a bag full of kittens at the top of every hour.

Do we need the World Wide Leader to justify something for us? Do we need their acknowledgment that there’s a team in this town off to a great start to legitimize it? They’ll report what they want to report. And, not to mention, we might not be the center of everyone else’s universe.

Why get all hot and bothered about something none of us control?

n/t

and the cubs “stay under the radar” as much as possible. i hope the rays stay hot and have a ridiculous 3-team playoff race in the AL East between yankees, red sux and rays.

hehe

I’m with everyone on not giving a rat’s rear end if they even spell Zambrano’s name right.
I just don’t care how they ignore what really is sports news – especially when it involves the best team in baseball, which is a team they historically spurned like a pile of manure smeared into their L.L. Bean loafers.

You are talking about significant things about two future Hall of Fame players , this beats
the Cubs winning streak in the first 3rd of the season. One is a total Yankee centric
joke and 4 is just out of place. I can’t watch TV now but even if the Cubs win tonight
I have to believe the top baseball story of the day will be Smoltz being out for the season
( side note one less reason for Maddux to consider going back to the Braves though
I seriously doubt he will go ANYWHERE).

Also per other posters I am more than content with the lack of attention though
sports fans in general should question ESPN’s priorities

are on ESPN AND there is NO other source for the game, ESPN never pollutes my screen. I have, for years, thought them to be egomaniacal (to put that term in the perspective of a “news” outlet) in their approach to sports in general and especially to baseball. Their broadcasters do NO research about the teams playing, they do not call the game being played, just use the game as an excuse to have another edition of Baseball Tonight, which means RedYankMets tonight. Their biased reporting reminds me of the CNN anchors literally crying WHILE DOING THE ELECTION news in 2000 when Gore didn’t win. Just a thoroughly disgusting network.

As a former Chicagoan now stuck in the Northeast and longtime Cubs fan, I have an alternate explanation for ESPN vis a vis the Cubs. ESPN knows there are a lot of hungry Cubs fans out there, but they want to suck them into watching as many of their interminable commercials as possible before showing any Cubs highlights or stories, if any.

Considering how many people live in the East Coast I can understand the Yankees and the Mets getting top billing last night. It was the beginning of the experiment with Chamberlain (BTW, it exploded in the Yankees’ faces again last night; moving Chamberlain to the starting rotation left the Yankees exposed in the latter innings all week,) The other top game had the return of a HOF’er: Pedro Martínez.

I also understand Randy Johnson getting top billing, because he passed Clemens in K’s, a landmark.

However, the Cubs should have been at least the #4 baseball story: the hottest team around. They weren’t mentioned because they were playing a dead team and the media expect them to sweep the Padres. But it should have been mentioned ahead of the Marlins game, at least.

The Cubs winning is not news to ESPN. ESPN likes it when the Cubs lose, so they can talk about curses, jinxes, black cats, Ron Santo, etc. Winning throws them off.

too bad he’s never cried

they get a lot of coverage. ESPN 1000 carries the national shows, Mike & Mike (5-9) & Tirico & Van Pelt (12-2) Chicago time and both of these shows has a lot of Cubs coverage. And I’m not talking about the ‘every 20 minutes SportsCentre’.

Really? Are you serious?

Have you noticed who is getting all of the Nationally televised games recently? Once you figure that out, then check the schedule to see who’s playing Sunday Night Baseball this week.

Maine and New Hampshire for 11 years, ( Last year lived there in 1994) This all prior to the Red Sox winning there two World Seires in 04 and last year. The time I lived there you would see maybe 25 percent of the people be interested in the Red Sox, ball cap here and there, maybe a bumper sticker on a truck, some people would talk about the Red Sox on a day to day basis and that would be to cruicify Bill Buckner ( herard about Calvin Scharldi Red Sox fans). My point is there was no Red Sox Nation as they claim, ONLY when they won the World Series they now claim to have the Nation. I go to Maine and New Hampshire every year to see inlaws and sister in laws etc.. It is beyond belief the NEW Red Sox fans, they have come out of the wood works to NOW become fans, it is shamefull and acctually funny. They couldn’t name a 2 players on there 1986 team or to be more accurate, they couldn’t name 3 players from there 2003 team. It is embarrassing talking to these people, no knowledge of there team, no history.
My point is the CUBS have the nation win or lose, we hang with this team no matter the outcome. It is and was Cub Nation before this so called Red Sox Nation.
My take is ESPN has jumped on the bandwagon just like the rest of New England.

because of one reason…...they’re the Yankees biggest rival. It doesn’t matter that they’ve won 2 WS in 4 years. It’s because they are the Yankees biggest rival.