Diworseification

Peter Lynch, a man who has more financial acumen in his pinky finger than most of us have in our entire bodies, had a term called "diworseification". It went something like this: when companies begin to do something that's way outside their core business, they like to call it "diversifying". This is all well and good, except when you haven't the faintest idea what you're doing. Then, you usually screw it up, and make your business worse in the process. Quaker Oats' purchase of Snapple was a great example of "diworseifying".

It would be nearly impossible to think of a better recent example of diworseification than the monstrosity that ESPN has become. The Worldwide Leader has gone from being a sports news and information hub to becoming some sort of multimedia extravaganza. TV movies, reality shows, musical guests galore and an increasing attempt to involve the hardcore sports nut in "SportsNation". Following the example of the folks at Moron Television, hereinafter "MTV", they set up a separate channel (ESPNEWS) just so you could watch the original content they promised without any nonsense. ESPN continues to blur the lines between sports and entertainment in a manner so shameless that Vince McMahon would blush.

Of course, there's the old saw, "well, if you don't like it, just stick to the stuff you enjoy." Too true, except that ESPN continues to marginalize the very things that brought it into prominence in the first place. I can't read anything without getting blitzed by an ad for the "Progressive vs. Purist debate", a "debate" between members of SportsNation, focusing on whether the newfangled way is better than the old-fashioned way. If that sounds vague, well, it's meant to be. This was arguably the dumbest idea I've ever heard from a company that's churning out dumb ideas at a record pace.

But we always had Bill Simmons, right? No matter how crappy the rest of ESPN might get, our old buddy The Sports Guy could always be counted on to save the day with a great article. Except that ESPN, after getting Our Hero back from his run on Jimmy Kimmel's writing crew, seems to be working feverishly to overexpose him. Giving him a home page on Page 2 was a good thing. "The Intern", a feeble copy of The Sports Guy, and a regular feature on said home page, was less good (how they didn't pick my buddy Nick for that job, by the way, is beyond me, but never mind). The Cold Pizza run was a disaster. And now, well, they've had a new brainfart.

Writing witty, entertaining and (sometimes) insightful articles was what made Simmons wildly popular, right? And ESPN wants to make money off his work, right? Let's take a brief quiz for the folks at home. You're ESPN, how do you handle this?

A. Commit Simmons to a daily article, thus guaranteeing a heavy flow of traffic to the site.
B. Commit Simmons to a daily article, but put some of his work in ESPN Insider, thus increasing revenues for that premium product.
C. Commit Simmons to numerous side projects, thus cutting into his writing time, decreasing the quality and quantity of his work, and have him do a cartoon mini-series, ignoring the complete lack of success in that media by anyone but FOX.

If you said C., please send your resume to Bristol, CT. Because, from the same company that gave you "I'd Do Anything" and "Dream Job", comes the Sports Guy cartoon.

The diworseification continues.