ESPN Classic...now Classically Bad.

I need to expand on an earlier comment. What the hell happened to ESPN Classic? They used to show great programming! The concept was outstanding! Let’s show the greatest games of all time…all of the time. It started with “theme night” where Monday’s featured a memorable baseball game (Game 6, 1985 WS; The Jack Morris 10-inning, Game 7 gem…), another night had a boxing match (Ali-Foreman, Dempsey-Tunney), another night a last second College Football game (Colorado-Michigan1994, FSU-Miami any year, …), and so on. They even had theme days, or afternoons based on cities: Atlanta Day, for example, would have a cornucopia of all-things Georgia: 1995 Braves WS game 7, Georgia-Georgia Tech football, a great Dominique game, a Deon Sanders Sportscentury…etc. Not only that, these “City Days” revolved around events. Two examples: they had a Seattle Day during the implosion of the Kingdome, and a day featuring Wisconsin sports during the final game at Milwaukee’s County Stadium. It was great!

Then, for some reason, they went away form this format and tried more original programming and sitcoms. Cheap Seats, Arli$$, Classic Now, and those stupid ESPN movies were the norm: Season on a Brink, 3, Bear Bryant at Texas A&M (this one was actually pretty good).

Now? That channel is useless. I swear they only show 5 things: Boxing, Poker, Rodeo, American Gladiators and Stump the Schwab. That’s it...almost every evening. When’s the last time they had a 2001 WS Game 7-esque game? An old AFL Championship game? The 1994 Rose Bowl? These kinds of games are seemingly off the programming list. Yeah, I’d rather watch the 1998 Wrangler Rodeo Classic from Butte, Montana than 1985 Villanova-Georgetown…yeah, right.

You suck ESPN! You took a great concept and turned it into watching fat people play cards.