Hannah Storm, Coming To An ESPN Morning Show Near You
Sunday, May 11, 2008
(posted by One More Dying Quail)
Two thoughts immediately ran through my head after seeing this story about Hannah Storm (via The Big Lead's Patrick Imig):
1) Why didn't ESPN have a morning SportsCenter already? You could probably argue that not enough happens overnight to create an entirely new show the next day, but local TV stations don't just rerun the 11 o'clock news the following morning, do they?
2) A story from a few years ago talked about how Bill Belichick watches SportsCenter like six times, from the late show right on through the next day, so by late-morning, he knows all the jokes. He's gonna be pissed about this. You don't mess around with a man's daily routine like that.
I really, really like the idea of ESPN doing a morning SportsCenter (even though I don't watch TV in the morning). With Cold Pizza/First Take, they were trying to break into the morning show market by doing something new and obviously uncomfortable; in this case, they're taking their bread-and-butter, signature show and building off of that. I like it.
Oddly enough, Storm co-anchored CBS' The Early Show for five years. If they ever decide to try something Cold Pizza-esque again, a direct competitor to Today and Good Morning America...watch your back, Jacobsen. Storm knows her stuff.
My opinion is nice and all, but I'm sure AA will likely be available for much more informed ramblings early in the week. An official announcement of Storm's hiring is expected on Tuesday.
11 Comments:
Hmm. I didn't remember Hannah looking that good.
An interesting consequence of this announcement: doing the late SportsCenter telecast will become even less appealing, as few people outside of the Pacific time zone will get to know the anchors....
Isn't the late night SportsCenter soon going to be based out of Los Angeles? If anything, this tells me that ESPN to make the late night showing centered around the west coast.
1. They DO replay games from 3-6 AM on ESPN and ESPN2.
2. I'm hearing that it'll be live from like 6 AM to 3 PM. Thats a lot of time to fill.
I'm sure with Bellicheat's expertise at videotaping, he'll still be able to watch SC multiple times.
@ Anon 4:02 If that's a recent picture, I agree
Ultimately, I think this is a slight admission on ESPN's part that First Take is not working on the Deuce (if anyone calls it that any more.)
I get the sense that the morning SC might take a lot of cues from the Sunday morning edition Bob Ley and Chris McKendry do (if those are still the hosts, I'm never up that early on a Sunday to watch.)
6 AM - 3 PM is a lot of time to fill on a regular basis. I think it would be best if they handled any live morning SC content as cable news networks do, I'm thinking CNN Newsroom or something along those lines.
@s2n:
McKendry & Ley are on those Sunday morning SportsCenters, along with Josh Elliott & Michelle Bonner. The thing about weekend morning SportsCenters is there's usually a show or two that keeps them off the air for four consecutive hours (Saturdays - College GameDay, Sundays - Outside The Lines, Sports Reporters, NFL Countdown); they might need something else to fill an hour of time.
There's a storm a-brewin' in my pants. Somebody get me a raincoat.
I once crashed a James Beard Foundation party. The food is fucking fantastic, but my friend managed to score free coke in the bathroom.
Also, my understanding is that they haven't done live SportsCenter overnight out of Bristol, since it's just too much trouble to get a production team working in the wee hours (it's not just the anchors who have to be there, you know). But obviously, it's a different story if they're taping in LA.
I enjoy Hannah's announcing! I'm glad to see her back where she belongs, announcing sports! She's my favorite woman sports announcer! Go Hannah!
I wish ESPN would replay full versions of the games overnight, rather than the 3-5 AM, two hour, heavily edited versions with about 1000 commercials. Replay the games from 3-6 or 3-7, then start doing a new SportsCenter at 7AM.
Regarless, having a new SC in the morning is a good idea, and I really never understood why there wasn't one already.