Sports Center: Difference between revisions

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''SportsCenter'' truly rocketed to national prominence in the early 1990s, when the 11 p.m. broadcast was anchored by Dan Patrick and Keith Olbermann. (Yes, ''[[He Also Did|that]]'' [[Countdown With Keith Olbermann|Keith Olbermann]]. Before he became MSNBC's preeminent liberal scold, he was a sportscaster, and a damned good--and hilarious--one, too.) The two were smart, witty and cultured and they introduced a brand of cutting humor to the broadcast that made it must-see TV. Some of the scenes in ''[[Sports Night]]'' are references to this--including the "left off the letter 's' in 'bulging disk'" bit. Of course, on ''[[Sports Center]]'', nobody caught it before airing...

Unfortunately, Olbermann, by his own admirable admission, was a bit of a prick and left the network in the late 1990s, though he and Patrick remained friends. Patrick expanded his role into other areas of the network, leaving ''SportsCenter'' in the hands of Patrick's post-Olbermann partner, Kenny Mayne, as well as [[~~Spot Light~~ Stealing Squad|the alternate duo]] of Rich Eisen and [[Catch Phrase]] Machine Stuart Scott. When Eisen left in 2003 to become the on-air lead of the newly minted NFL Network, ''SportsCenter'' was left to be anchored by a collection of new talent who sought to emulate Scott's painfully hip catch phrasing (with varying degrees of success) rather than the Olbermann/Patrick/Eisen urbane snarkiness.

Unfortunately, Olbermann, by his own admirable admission, was a bit of a prick and left the network in the late 1990s, though he and Patrick remained friends. Patrick expanded his role into other areas of the network, leaving ''SportsCenter'' in the hands of Patrick's post-Olbermann partner, Kenny Mayne, as well as [[Spotlight-Stealing Squad|the alternate duo]] of Rich Eisen and [[Catch Phrase]] Machine Stuart Scott. When Eisen left in 2003 to become the on-air lead of the newly minted NFL Network, ''SportsCenter'' was left to be anchored by a collection of new talent who sought to emulate Scott's painfully hip catch phrasing (with varying degrees of success) rather than the Olbermann/Patrick/Eisen urbane snarkiness.

In recent months, the show's producers have streamlined ''SportsCenter'' and eliminated some of the more objectionable aspects of the show, such as the shouting analysts and meaningless segments constructed solely to [[Enforced Plug|pimp sponsors]]. For all the complaining about the show, ''SportsCenter'' is more popular than ever. There are no serious national challengers to its dominance; [[CNN|CNNSI]] was launched in 1996 as a 24-hour sports news network, but failed and shut down in May 2002; it didn't help that ESPNEWS, which served essentially the same function, was launched shortly before CNNSI. Also, CNN's long-running nightly sportscast ''Sports Tonight'', which had existed since CNN was founded in 1980, was removed from CNN's schedule shortly after 9/11, moving to CNNSI and was canceled for good with that network's demise. Fox Sports Net has also failed in its attempts to combat ''SportsCenter''. When that network debuted in 1996 it had a news show called ''Fox Sports News'', renamed ''National Sports Report'' in 1998. They managed to get [[Keith Olbermann]] in 1999, but he left in 2001 and the show was canceled in 2002. In 2006 FSN debuted a news show called ''The Final Score'' which used a basic format of highlights-only and scores to draw viewers in, but it was canceled in 2011.

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