ESPN Aired A Promo For Its NHL Opening Night Coverage During Yesterday's Cubs-Padres Game And Its On-Air Broadcast Team Openly Admitted "There Is Zero Chance I'll Be Watching"
A little bit of context here. The NHL came back to ESPN in 2021 on a seven-year deal (through 2027–28), and Disney execs have been pounding the table trying to sell hockey as a marquee property alongside the NBA, NFL, and MLB.
If you’re in Bristol mothership leadership, and you’re spending years trying to make hockey feel “big time” again on ESPN, the last thing you want is one of your own voices basically telling baseball fans- "nah, not interested, zero chance I’ll watch."
That undermines the cross-promotion machine, which is literally why they shovel money into these deals in the first place.
As somebody who just got the third degree this year for knocking something within their own company, (because I'm a moron), I know about this all too well.
Ben McDonald is a baseball guy, not a company man.
He’s an ex-pitcher who calls MLB and college baseball. Hockey isn’t on his radar, and he wasn’t about to fake it. That kind of bluntness is part of why ESPN hires him in the booth in the firts place. Fans think, “that’s just Ben being Ben.” The problem is, that honesty works fine for baseball analysis but blows up when it collides with corporate buzzword bullshit like "synergy". Execs haaaaaaate that.
That goes for double when you consider how ESPN is stretched incredibly thin right now. They’ve gutted on-air rosters, laid off legacy voices, and spread remaining talent across multiple sports. Chris Fowler is calling games like 4 nights a week right now I think.
You get moments where the play-by-play guy (Kevin Brown) is trying to carry the promo torch, while the analyst has no skin in the game. You can almost hear the producer in his ear begging, “push the hockey tripleheader,” while McDonald just shrugs it off. Laugh out loud funny if this is any other company but ESPN.
If the production team is smart, they will send out a company wide memo praising and highlighting Sean McDonaugh and Greg McElroy. This is how it's done.
ESPN only has one year left on its MLB contract (it's done after 2025 THANK GOD), and the network basically checked out. Baseball isn’t their future centerpiece anymore. Which is fucking crazy when you consider how awesome Baseball Tonight used to be for decades, back in the day. Was such a great part of summer nights. Now, the NFL, hockey, and the NBA are what they care about.
That makes it extra awkward that a baseball voice- on what’s basically a “lame duck” property, kneecapped the NHL’s big opening-night promo. One of their own guys openly telling fans not to watch something they just paid $400 million a year to broadcast. Gold.
This is all the perfect snapshot of ESPN’s current identity crisis. They’re still the “Worldwide Leader,” but in name only. Their business model depends on cross-promoting billion-dollar rights packages. And they're disgraceful and incestuous, "I scratch your back if you scratch mine" relationship with the NFL.
Which really is sad when you think about it.
ESPN used to be the shit. Much like MTV it was a stape of everybody growing up in the 90s and 2000s childhoods. I won't beat a dead horse but the guys anchoring Sportscenter in the morning before school were akin to Walter Kronkite for our grandparents, and Peter Jennings and Tom Brokaw for our parents. Except way funnier. We not only knew their names, but trusted them and felt like we knew them. And most importantly, we wished we did! How fucking cool would it have been to knock back a few with Craig Kilborn and Rich Eisen? Even today. I could ask them questions for hours about what the fuck happened to Keith Olberman's brain and listen to their theories.
But today?
Name me one person they have at that entire network besides SVP who you would even look up from your phone for if a buddy told you they just walked into a bar?
(Sidebar - honorable mention includes-
Molly McGrath
Malika Andrews
Taylor McGregor
and Mike Breen
It's laughable how bad it's become.
p.s. - real talk, I am actually rooting hard for ESPN's hockey coverage to do well. If it can become even close to what it was like in the 90s then we will be extremely lucky. "National Hockey Night" on ESPN was fucking electric back in the day. It was the highlight of mid week winter nights when the sun went down at like 4 in the afternoon and everything was miserable. Being a Bruins fan growing up and only getting to really watch them on NESN, seeing western conference teams like the Blackhawks and Red Wings play (it felt like it was always Chicago Detroit on a Wednesday night barn burner back then) was fucking awesome. And I don't care what anybody says, Gary Thorne, BIll Clement, Brian Engblom, and Darren Pang were the best fucking call-team of all time. Listen to these calls-
Plus, their real-life orchestra curated theme song sill gets even the softest dick rock hard when it comes on.
p.p.s. - imagine being this fucking dumb to think this?