Sports news: How ESPN became indistinguishable from Barstool and TikTok.

Earlier this month, during an interview with ESPN president Jimmy Pitaro on The Press Box podcast, journalist Bryan Curtis identified a dilemma facing the network as it drifts toward an ambiguous future. ESPN, said Curtis, used to epitomize a sensibility—one that was erudite, laconic, and dryly funny. Its torchbearers included gadflies like Keith Olbermann, Stuart Scott, and Bill Simmons. The flagship talk shows, Around The Horn and Pardon the Interruption , functioned like symposiums for eccentric newspaper columnists. Its most memorable branding initiative, the This Is SportsCenter commercials, possessed a quirky, Beckettian spareness—delightfully nerdy, in a distinctly liberal arts kind of way. So in 2025, with ESPN shifting toward a direct-to-consumer streaming model, and after