The hard-hitting New York Times investigative team has come up with huge breaking news regarding sports broadcasting and the National Football League: ESPN's "Sportscenter" and "Sunday NFL Countdown" both use a lot of cliches! I'll let you take a minute to regain your composure because I know that just rocked your world.
The New York Times analyzed six months of transcripts from the two shows to determine the players, story lines and phrases that recurred most over the course of this past season. They came up with a couple of unique ways to break it down. The first is a script for ESPN featuring some of the most used cliches. The second is a breakdown of the players most frequently mentioned. The more frequently mentioned, the larger the player. As SB Nation NFL described it, Tebow towers over everybody else like a QB Godzilla!
None of this is particularly shocking, but I still thought it was an amusing way to compile the information. ESPN, and really a lot of sports media has taken to using an incredible amount of cliches. While the NFL Network does provide a bit more constructive language in describing football, they too often fall prey to the numerous cliches we always hear.
I've found myself watching less and less of ESPN, thanks primarily to the growth of channels like NFL Network and MLB Network. None of them are perfect, but the Network channels do seem to provide much more in-depth coverage that ESPN just does not have the time to devote.