Sports Business: Moving to the Left
Written by playerpress.com, Wednesday April 08 2009
For years ESPN operated as if the western part of the US was an afterthought. Game times are listed with their Eastern Time starts, even if they are being played on the west coast. Until recently ESPN functioned like it was trying to maintain the ideal behind founder Bill Rasmussen’s dream of showing all New England sports all the time.
However, like the Donner Party, Lewis and Clark and the Brooklyn Dodgers, ESPN has heeded the words of Horace Greeley and decided to go west. In truth, ESPN are more akin to prospectors who heeded the lure of the gold rush. Yes, like the miner 49ers ESPN looked at the west coast and determined there’s gold in them there hills.
While MLB was tossing out its first pitch for opening day on Monday, April 6, ESPN was settling into its new digs across the street from LA’s Staples Center. On that night at 10:00 pm Pacific Time, note Pacific Time, the west coast edition of Sports Center was inaugurated. For west coast residents who have long had to make up excuses to leave work early for the World Series, MLB All Star games and NBA/NHL playoff games this is not complete reparations, but it is a beginning.
Part of the thinking behind bringing the media giant to the western shores is allowing them better focus on teams that reside left of the Mississippi, but that isn’t the sole reason. The west coast has large Asian and Latin populations that are just as sports crazy as their fellow Americans. The fact that they embrace futbol and a brand of baseball and basketball that is more team oriented than what is often offered in MLB and the NBA doesn’t lessen their fervor. If you watched the World Baseball Classic you saw them at their frenzied best as they banged drums, blew whistles, waved flags and conducted organized cheers.
ESPN saw them and listened to their celebrations with a lust akin to a skin flint hearing the till of the cash register open to receive more lucre. In the HD vision of ESPN, today its Sports Center West Coast edition, tomorrow its pay per view for Central and South American futbol and Japanese, Taiwanese and Korean baseball.
Networks tend to become static and sometimes need a visionary to guide them to better programming. Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David combined to reinvent the sitcom and drug NBC out of a doldrums it had bobbed in like a cork tossed into the Pacific. The high cost of talent eventually sought the network to seek weaker, cheaper alternatives, but the shining moment in TV history was courtesy of two men who saw what was possible. For ESPN the visionary who herded them westward is Tim Leiweke
Leiweke is the CEO of Anschutz Entertainment Group, and is listed by Business Week as number 23 in the list of the 100 most influential people in sports. His touch has already graced the City of Angeles since he is the man responsible for bringing David Beckham to the LA Galaxy. Even if he never again dons a Galaxy kit Beckham did his job for both the franchise and the league. He made the MLS viable and sold tickets and merchandise for the Galaxy.
It can be argued that Beckham’s appearance in MLS also helped him by providing him with a starring role when he was being viewed as an afterthought in Europe. That point is valid and as a successful businessman Leiweke knows a good deal is only a good deal when both parties are satisfied. That is why he was willing to foot a large portion of the bill to bring Sports Center to his side of the continent. And, knowing that they needed more than his loot and personal interests to make it a worthwhile trip, he pointed out the dormant audience waiting to be tapped residing across the Great Divide. That target audience’s reaction to the WBC was simply proof that he was correct in his claims. In other words, those 25 big Korean flags that were stitched together to form one gigantic flag and then passed up and down seating sections while their national team played was one yardstick in the measure of success in opening up a western branch of ESPN.
A gleaming new TV studio isn’t the only thing that ESPN has initiated in their drive west. They have also stepped up their radio image. That includes the maiden broadcast of a Seattle station that was birthed the same day that sports guys were getting make up applied to them in LA. It didn’t have nearly the fanfare of the TV launching, but ESPN has moved into an area that previously was ruled by native residents who spent countless airtime hours debating who was morally superior, the UW Huskies, or the WSU Cougars. Now, the folks at KJR AM are left to determine how many Huskies can dance on the head of a pin while the rest of the city listens to the Mariners, Sounders FC and Seahawks at their new radio home in between national programming like Mike and Mike and Sports Insiders peppered with local flavor like Kevin Calabro; the former voice of the Sonics who now announces Sounders FC matches, local college hoops and national NBA broadcasts for ESPN.
This move simply certifies that ESPN is aware that the laid back image of west coast sports fans is long obsolete. From the Sounders FC fans who have embraced the team like they’ve been around forever, to the Rip City faithful, to the Dodgers fans who have purchased blue dreadlock wigs, #99 jerseys and even show up early for batting practice, the west coast is proving its fan base is as fanatic as any other area in the country. Even the celebrities who attended the Dodgers playoff games last season hung around until the end. That’s because they were truly interested. In the past they would have been around after the 7th inning only because they thought there was valet parking and they were still waiting for their ride to be delivered to their seat.
There may never be a time when a LA Lakers game is advertised as starting at 7:30 Pacific Time, but at least ESPN realized we are out here and thriving, Welcome to the west coast, guys. Now, what took you so long to arrive?
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