Why does ESPN feel the need to justify itself as an entertainment news outlet? Why does it bother with these shows and just stick to sports?

If you read the paper last week, you noticed a massive two full page section devoted to the NFL Draft. For football fans, this is a big deal because you get to see the rookies come up and make it big.

However, for sports analysts, its a time to hit at every possible scenario, every pick, ever single day for a week.

You have one-time demigods like Mel Kiper coming on air and yammering on for days about this guy and this team and what everyone should be doing.

But it isnt just the draft. Any time something even remotely related to sports, like the Virginia Tech shootings, ESPN needs to air it, over and over, until theyve devoted hours of air time on it.

Even things actually related to sports are put under this light, like the Bob Knight chin tap incident last year in which ESPN went as far as to have debates over whether it was a slap or a chin tap or a grab!

What does that have to do about basketball? ESPN has shows during which analysts attack each other with quips and jabs about hair and dance moves (Tony Kornheiser frequently attacks Michael Wilbons hair and Tonys penguin dance), game shows, and a show where four grown men (and one woman occasionally) compete in a debate over events that are, yes, related to sports, but require no thought on the games themselves. It includes my personal favorite, Why Randy Moss should stop talking?

Why does ESPN feel the need to justify itself as an entertainment news outlet? Why does it bother with these shows and just stick to sports?

Im a habitual watcher of ESPN and Im especially fond of those whacky shows like Around the Horn and Pardon the Interruption (PTI). I watch it every morning when I wake up, and every night before I go to bed. It is where I gained my affinity for baseball (web gems are the reason I love baseball) and also where I gained my understanding of sports in general.

So why, when I turn on ESPN lately, does it seem we are only talking about what a person is doing in life, not in sports? Yes, Pacman Jones was a relevant issue because they went at length about the feebleness of the NFL commissioners office, but at the same time, the subject didnt need to be addressed in five separate shows.

It seems to me that ESPN is trying to cover for something, and I think it has to do with the management of ESPN and who owns it.

Thats right sports fans � Im going after Disney on this one.

Disney is an entertainment mecca. You cant go two blocks without seeing something Disney related. They make everything a spectacle. Have you ever been to Disneyland? They have laser shows every hour and adults in ridiculous costumes. If you say that isnt a spectacle, then you might have severe mental issues.

Disney forces, in my mind, ESPN to remain entertaining instead of a news outlet. Yes, I like the shows, but they are unnecessary. The amount of attention they give to such things as the chin tap or the Barry Bonds son crying story we all heard about for three weeks last summer � none of that is remotely interesting to a sports fan.

So, Dan Patrick, instead of selling Cousins (although those are some tasty subs), try turning ESPN back into a sports network, and not an entertainment network. Anyone can talk about sports and pretend they know what they are talking about (Cubs fans, Im talking about you), but ESPN was created as a network entirely devoted to sports, 24/7/365.

Leave the glitter and glam to Hollywood, and show me those web gems and top 10 plays that made me love baseball and the greatest that was ESPN.

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