ESPN Ombudsman calls out ESPN

I like the idea of ESPN having an Ombudsman, but the idea of the Ombudsman is to give constructive criticism. Lee Ann Schreiber took over for George Solomon a couple of months ago and from her most recent column, I hope she stays at her position for a while. She calls out ESPN for giving too much credence to certain sports for which the network pays rights fees in favor of hockey which it doesn’t televise. And as a good Ombudsman, she points out certain conflicts of interests including sponsored segments in SportsCenter.

And she writes that ESPN has the perception of a monolith among sports fans:

A problem remains. ESPN may not be a monolith, but it often appears to be one. Especially when launching new endeavors like Arena Football or NASCAR or Major League Soccer, someone at ESPN, perhaps everyone at ESPN, should be aware of the appearance of overzealous promotion. Synergy can backfire. Wooing us with a new sport is fine, but when you flood the zone all at once on all platforms, at least some of us will feel stalked.

When George Solomon left, I was hoping they would replace him with a strong, independent voice and apparently, Schreiber is doing that quite well. Let’s hope her future columns are as good as her most recent.