From the Tribune to the Tube: The Development of Sports Punditry on Cable Television

abstract:This article argues that the genre of televised sports punditry primarily developed from newspaper columnists and sports talk radio hosts, with the outrage discourse that dominated both sports and political talk radio transitioning seamlessly to television. This article engages in a critical production study of shows such as ESPN's The Sports Reporters, the network's flagship newscast SportsCenter, and ESPN2's SportsNight, which became centers for "infotainment," merging more traditional news reporting with popular culture references and distinctive personalities in order to expand the network's audiences and profitability. The article argues that while televised sports punditry demonstrated a greater commitment to on-air racial and gender diversity than political punditry, it simultaneously centered and privileged the white masculinity dominating both sports columns in newspapers and sports talk radio shows. This article also links early sports pundit programs to a brief history of contemporary political punditry on cable television news and a larger industrial shift from broadcast to the "narrowcasting" era of cable.