Hosts: Sonny, Rich and Ryan

In this episode of the Soapbox, we took a look at ESPN’s horrific bias when it comes to their baseball telecasts. In just two and a half months, the Chicago Cubs have been featured four times. The Red Sox, Yankees and Mets aren’t too far behind. Compared to MLB Network’s weekly Thursday and Saturday night broadcasts, the bias of the Worldwide Leader could not be more obvious.

Do you like Manchester United? ESPN does. The Wordwide Leader in Sports likes much them so much, that they’ve shown them in every single week of Champion’s League play so far this year.

While Manchester United, 2007-2008 UEFA Champions League winners, should be profiled more than any other team in Europe, there are other teams out there that deserve a spot in ESPN’s weekly telecasts. As stated above, every match that Man United has played in the UEFA compeitition this year has been shown live. I wonder what ESPN scheduling meetings are like?

Some Idiot Producer: Alright everyone it’s now time to choose our Champions League game of the week for Matchday 2. Here is what we have to choose from: Real Madrid vs. Zenit St. Petersburg (won UEFA Cup & Super Cup), Juventus vs. Bate, Arsenal vs. Porto, Lyon vs. Bayern Munich, Villareal vs. Celtic, and last but not least Manchester United @ Aalborg BK.

Idiot Employees and Production Team: Well boss, I think we should obviously go with the Manchester United @ Aalborg BK game. It offers our viewers millions of chances to get a glimpse of this douchebag.

My point is this; soccer fans in the United States have a hard time following their favorite teams from Europe. The ESPN Champions League telecasts should expand their coverage in the Group Stage to show at least half of the teams in the competition. ESPN failed to show both of the games between Juventus and Real Madrid earlier this month, both of which were great matches between two of the world’s most famous teams. Other matchups ESPN missed out on while airing Man United were Fiorentina vs.Bayern Munich, Bayern Munich vs. Lyon, and Arsenal vs. Porto.

Manchester United has already qualified for the next round in the competition. Therefore, they need to show games that have implications on who advances and who goes home. Hopefully ESPN gets this right before picking this week’s matchup. Oh wait! I just checked the listing for ESPN today at 2:30 PM EST. They’re showing Manchester United vs. Villareal, two teams already qualified for the next round.

With ESPN going live for Sportscenter in the mornings, there are bound to be moments where slip ups happen.  I think we’ve caught our first.  Along with Sean Salisbury calling him a crypt keeper, John Clayton busting ass while talking about Derek Anderson has to be one of his finest moments on camera.  Did someone step on a duck?  Must be the barking spiders.

Are we supposed to take this seriously?  ESPN should just openly root for all Boston sports teams and make our lives a whole lot easier.

ESPN has announced that, from now on, they’re changing their name from the Worldwide Leader in Sports to the Rehashed Story Network. I’d be curious to know the last time NFL Live talked about a story other than Brett Favre, the NFC East, or the New England Patriots. And whatever happened to that West Coast baseball game ESPN used to show once a week to, you know, provide baseball fans with a nationally televised game that didn’t involve a team from New York or Boston. There’s a reason that most people didn’t know about Josh Hamilton’s story until he was hitting 28 first round dingers in the Home Run Derby; ESPN doesn’t cover teams that aren’t in huge media markets.

In case you were concerned or didn’t know about it, ESPN will be airing Green Bay’s first pre-season game and their first regular season game on prime time so everyone can bask in Brett Favre’s greatness. But you must know about it already because you just watched NFL Live do a role play with Floyd Reece pretending to be Ted Thompson and Drew Rosenhaus pretending to be Brett Favre’s agent while they acted out a conversation between the two. Why would they do this? Is there really nothing else going on in the football world that takes priority over an amateur skit? Absolutely nothing that was said in the five minutes of Reece and Rosenhaus bantering has any factual weight or any relevance to the topic of Brett Favre.

Then, of course, I would want nothing more than to watch the Yankees and Red Sox play the first and third games of a meaningless June series on primetime. Why would ESPN bother showing anything other than Cubs-Cardinals, Yankees-Red Sox, or Mets-Phillies. Those are the only teams in the league right? How about giving Anaheim more than one prime time game every two months. They’re the best team in the league, at least give them some love. How about showing us Josh Hamilton, Milton Bradley, and Ian Kinsler slug balls out of Arlington every now and then? Would it kill to go to Florida and show us the Marlins, a team who is just a few games out of first despite half the team being fresh out of high school. To ESPN, yes, it would kill.

I suppose the purpose of this article doesn’t go beyond a simple rant. Nonetheless, I can’t believe that ESPN continues to get away with garbage unbalanced coverage of the sports world based on what they view as important.

This screen captures comes compliments of a forum I visit frequently. Honestly, how in the hell does this get past the chain of command that exists during a broadcast like Monday Night Football? Whoever screwed the pooch will likely be getting some sort of punishment tonight. If this blunder isn’t proof that MNF should stay the hell away from Buffalo, I don’t know what is.