The company has already begun its own human-clone farm to provide for its massive energy needs. The cloned fetuses are harvested into large cryogenic chambers and kept alive but unconscious. Large tubes are then inserted directly into the fetuses’ eye sockets, pumping vital plasma into the company’s bionic central nervous system. With any luck, ESPN will get most unsuspecting sports fans to become part of their gigantic human plantation project by 2067. At least, that’s the current timetable.
What’s this mean for you, the athlete? It means that getting on SportsCenter is harder than ever. Being in a SportsCenter highlight used to be a rite of passage for young pro athletes. It was a sign that you had finally made the big-time, and that a lucrative deal with Taco Bell or any of the Yum! Brands restaurant franchises awaited you. Those highlights have grown ever more scarce on the show as of late. Highlights only appeal to sports fans, and ESPN could give two shits about them. What ESPN craves is . . . branding! Branded sets! Branded segments! Branded events! Branded brands! Ever heard of ESPN presents the ESPN World Series brought to you by the Ford Motor Company sponsored by GlaxoSmithKline in association with ESPN? It’s coming soon, and everyone at ESPN agrees by coercion: you’ll love it!
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DID YOU KNOW?
Employees who break the rules at ESPN are often punished by having to spend one night alone in a coffin with the remains of Walt Disney.
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After all that branding, the only highlights you now see on SportsCenter are highlights of other highlights. You might catch the last three nanoseconds of a dunk, or a really big football hit that’s been taken completely out of context from the game in which it took place. Otherwise, the show simply doesn’t have time. I asked a senior producer at ESPN, who will soon be found dead, to take me through a typical hour of the show. Here was the template he gave me before asking me to tell his children he loved them:
11:00 p.m. — Introduction of SportsCenter introduction
11:02 p.m. — Highlights of what you can expect during the show, including one story that looks interesting and will occupy five seconds at the end of the broadcast
11:03 p.m. — Cut to commercial
11:05 p.m. — The real SportsCenter title sequence, featuring a giant SC logo striding atop a giant graphic phallus, with all kinds of crazy rings and shit shooting over it
11:06 p.m. — Voice-over guy with no gravitas says, “This is SportsCenter.” You are blinded by greatness.
11:08 p.m. — Cut to commercial
11:10 p.m. — Ten-minute Stuart Scott slam poem that only serves to reinforce his middle-class upbringing
11:20 p.m. — Cut to commercial
11:22 p.m. — “Coors Light Cold Hard Facts,” in which analysts Mark Schlereth and Merril Hoge (combined number of concussions: 248) give you their hardcore, producer-coached opinions
11:24 p.m. — Thirty-second teaser for what’s ahead on the second half of SportsCenter
11:25 p.m. — Cut to commercial
11:27 p.m. — Linda Cohn broadcasts from a remote location in Rhode Island to tell you what a fun week it’s been watching the X Games, and that these guys are athletes
11:29 p.m. — Top Five College Football Plays of the ESPN Era!
11:32 p.m. — Cut to commercial
11:34 p.m. — Five-minute recap of Pardon the Interruption
11:39 p.m. — Cut to commercial
11:40 p.m. — Cut to ESPN commercial break within commercial break. Airing next week: the ESPN original movie Game of Shadows, starring Mario Van Peebles!
11:42 p.m. — “What2Watch4” segment takes you through all your programming choices on the ESPN family of networks for the following day, without pesky prepositions!
11:44 p.m. — “Budweiser Hot Seat!” This segment gives the anchors a chance to really put the screws to an athlete or coach. Tonight’s guest is Mario Van Peebles.
11:46 p.m. — “Fact or Fiction” segment! This differs from “Cold Hard Facts” because it allows retards like John Kruk to be unnecessarily strident about things that they think are true or false.
11:48 p.m. — Cut to commercial
11:50 p.m. — Chris Berman appears. Introduces the other four people in the studio, using the same jokes he’s used for the last twenty-nine fucking years. Everyone laughs. Throws it back to Stuart.
11:52 p.m. — Cut to Ed Werder outside the Cowboys practice facility, waiting for something to happen
11:54 p.m. — Cut to commercial
11:56 p.m. — “SportsCenter Xpress” takes you through all the day’s games in two minutes or less! It’s highlights for people on the go! Wasn’t that thoughtful of them?
11:58 p.m. — “Did You Know?” And you did.
12:00 a.m. — We start all over again!
I tell you, it’s the tightest show on sports. You have to work extra hard to get your break on that show. A plain old dunk, home run, or touchdown won’t do. You’re gonna have to be creative. I suggest drop-kicking an opponent, breaking a hallowed record through suspect means, or spitting on someone. That’s the kind of stuff advertisers really gravitate toward these days, and it’s your only hope.
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DID YOU KNOW? BONUS!
Due to corporate obligations, future installments of SportsCenter’s “Did You Know?” segment will focus exclusively on just what gives Budweiser such a crisp, clean taste.
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