While ESPN’s quality in reporting has been in decline, one of the ONLY reasons to “read the articles” was to get to the end and comment on the articles – either to offer insight, trash ESPN, or just go crazy with absurd trade suggestions or just have fun…
I had a bunch of comments that would pull in 60+ responses. Sometimes people would come after you / insult you… other times, people totally had your back. Once I summarized a long ESPN article in two sentences, and people loved it. Other times, I wrote really tough, but totally accurate comments trashing the author (a couple of those actually got deleted – bastards! lol!). A few times, I even saw comments from friends…
It was fun.
Unfortunately, a few days ago, ESPN decided to shut-off ALL Facebook commenting. There is no commenting allowed on ANY ESPN article.
Way to take the fun out of being a reader, ESPN!
More to the point… What makes sports an entertaining topic, and why sports talk radio is so popular, is because anyone can watch a game, follow a team, etc, and chime in. You get to talk about plays you saw, players you like, trades you want, complain about team management, and more. You can celebrate with people you don’t know, and share your frustration and pain when teams lose.
So… Why would a sports media website remove fan engagement?
It’s called: Brain-dead business! It is like talk radio without callers or.. talk… So… Way to go, ESPN. Way to find a new way to suck!
