Abstract
ESPN stands alone. The four-letter acronym carries unmatched global clout in sport media. From humble beginnings in Connecticut trailers in 1979 to a multibillion dollar powerhouse, the story of ESPN’s rise to the top of the media mountain is remarkable. ESPN is no longer a cable sports network. It is a brand that trails only Nike.
Books about ESPN have chronicled behind-the-scenes examination of the network’s flagship show SportsCenter (Olbermann and Patrick, 1997) and salacious stories about the network’s rise to prominence during the end of the 20th century (Evey, 2004; Freeman, 2000). Enter Travis Vogan, who digs beyond the surface in ESPN: The Making of a Sports Media Empire, providing an insightful, thorough examination of the brand, not the cable network, as he peels back the intricate layers of the “cultural pervasiveness of sport” (Rowe, 2014: 577) within which sports fans exist as a “community of addicts” (Vogan, 2015, p. 34).
Questions about ESPN’s blurred mixture of the tenets of journalism and entertainment are commonly raised in other research, but answers are rarely provided. That is until Vogan penned ESPN. Vogan identifies the “unlikely development of symbolic capital” (p. 3) as the catalyst during ESPN’s expansion into a media empire with programming and content ventures that create a template of success that blends narcissism, copycat tactics, and a keen eye for talent. The book contains just six primary chapters.
The first chapter produces the standard ESPN history but highlights 1987 as the turning point for the network with standout coverage of the America’s Cup sailing race, a groundbreaking cable contract with the National Football League, and the branding of SportsCenter beyond a highlight-driven recap show in the tradition of network television sportscasts. As Fox Sports and CNN/SI attempted to wedge into the sports cable television market share, the rest of the book outlines how ESPN defeated (or acquired) potential competitors across all platforms.
Vogan argues that non-traditional media access points of original programming, primarily documentaries, and online content set ESPN apart, all the while creating – and protecting – a brand. The value blossomed through cross-promotions and media events that were expertly scheduled and executed beginning with the SportsCentury series akin to “a populist museum curator” (p. 52) to celebrate the network’s 25th anniversary. As ESPN entered television agreements with professional sports leagues and generated archival footage from its own broadcasts, Vogan explains that the network constructed itself as the resident sport historian and profited from its self-aggrandizing style of business to utilize its own content as the primary historical artifacts and avoid publicizing other networks.
ESPN The Magazine and Page 2 on ESPN.com are analyzed as a response to Sports Illustrated’s backward form of journalism, with an emphasis on future forecasts instead of rehashing past events. This new form of journalism informed readers with short, quick-witted insight into the minutiae of sport. The final two chapters emphasize ESPN’s foray into original programming and the eventual explosion of the 30 for 30 series as the foundation of ESPN Films. Vogan often raises concerns of the crossover between fiction and reality to build – not compromise – the brand.
ESPN provides a solid inquiry of the network’s tactical moves, which included hiring journalists away from highly regarded news outlets, leaders of film companies, and bloggers with millions of followers to funnel into the ESPN media empire. This systematic removal of competition eliminated negative publicity about ESPN to help the network control the message. While this business model follows suit with corporate America, it negatively influences society’s understanding of sport under the sole ESPN footprint. Vogan could have identified how this was more problematic in ESPN’s construction as a cultural norm in mainstream media. Instead, the focus is about how ESPN acquired and utilized content to reinvigorate its brand. The book highlights blogger-turned-millionaire Bill Simmons as the brains behind the operation in the development of 30 for 30 and Grantland.com . While not overtly stated, Simmons is a prime example of Rowe’s (2014) concern for how the “omnipresence of sport is both a strength and a weakness” (p. 577) in ESPN’s influential cultural role to construct experts that could be explored in greater depth.
ESPN provides an Americanized view of the network with limited insight into the transnational network’s global expansion that reaches over 60 countries. With an oversaturated US media market, further exploration of the network’s growing markets in Central and South America, as well as Asia, would properly contextualize the ESPN brand and how sport fans learn about sports and athletes unique to specific countries.
Vogan has produced tremendous layers of complexity of symbolic capital regarding how ESPN creates and emphasizes its brand through partnerships with the Tribeca Film Festival and the EA Sports Madden NFL video game to drive the company name. Law et al. (2002) laid a foundation of the sport–media complex and how a media oligopoly of television conglomerates controlled the sports landscape. Vogan’s book extends that concept but expertly explains how ESPN is now the monopoly of sports networks.
The book’s conclusion produces the most poignant synopsis of how ESPN, like the NFL, wants to protect its brand and why the intertwined relationships with professional sports leagues and college conferences negatively influence how ESPN skews content. Amid NFL pressure, ESPN cancelled the popular Playmakers series of a fictional professional football team with a slew of criminal indiscretions and distanced itself in 2013 from the League of Denial documentary that uncovers the significant issues of head injuries in the NFL. These missed opportunities situate ESPN as a driver in sports content when it is convenient and non-controversial.
Law et al. (2002: 300) asked how “circuits of promotion” in the sports-media complex can shape corporate branding. Vogan produced the answer. ESPN outlines a rise through luck, innovation, good fortune, copycat programming, and corporate takeovers that branded ESPN through “a carefully orchestrated and vigilantly guarded status as the Worldwide Leader in Sports” (p. 177).