Following the attacks in Paris, viewers tuning into SportsCenter were surprised to see headlines about the event on the day of the shootings, as the sports entertainment network managed to find a sports-centric angle to a world political news story.
Said ESPN.com staff writer Brian Chang, “We were very excited in the office when we learned that one of the attacks occurred in a stadium. Any world event that can loosely be connected to sports is always a plus for us. That stuff tends to get more clicks than a preview of the Oklahoma-TCU game.”
Chang continued, “Thank goodness it actually happened near a sports venue though. Our film crew almost had to fly out and do a segment on how soccer united the French people in their time of mourning. I don’t even know where my passport is.”
This is not the first time that ESPN has attempted to report serious news content alongside sports headlines. Sports fan Ben George explained, “I remember after Obama’s election in 2008 they published an article about his ‘body man,’ Reggie Love, and his time playing basketball at Duke.”
Added George, “I mean, it was interesting, but it seemed like a kind of cheap try at including national news on their homepage. We all knew Obama was elected from actual news companies.”
At press time, ESPN broke the story that Russian President Vladimir Putin and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were meeting “down the street from a skating rink.”
