Basketball is not a sport, it's a way of life.

The low down on what's really wrong with the letting go of Zach Lowe

With the laying-off of Zach Lowe today by ESPN, the struggling sports network seems to be loudly proclaiming the not-so-quiet part: ESPN is no longer interested in being the arbiter of substantive basketball coverage because it’s just not good business.

In this day and age of the dumbing down of sports coverage, where clickbait is king, attention spans are fleeting, and poorly founded hot takes are more attractive than nuance, ESPN has been at the forefront of shifting these journalistic norms for several years now. Over roughly the last decade, there has been a conspicuous transition on the network in terms of on-air talent and the structuring of their shows. Mostly gone are the pundits who spend hours of preparation dissecting tapes, understanding analytics, scouring team financials, and researching the machinations of the league. Instead, we are assailed by former players and coaches, many of whom know the game better than any of us could ever hope, but who clearly aren’t doing anything more than getting their hair and makeup done before their appearances. Or worse, the bombastic radio or social media personalities who are there sheerly because of their ability to drive traction by what seems to be the peddling of willful ignorance. ESPN is no longer concerned with being the most knowledgeable name in sports; they just want to be the most knowable name in sports.

Now, I’m obviously not an objective voice here. I take umbrage with a great deal of what has happened to the foundation of sports coverage. I struggle to keep my footing on a landscape that is rapidly changing. Yet, not all change is good. What’s happening in sports coverage at large, and basketball coverage in particular, feels like journalistic fracking. Organizations are willfully tearing open the very core for the sake of the quick buck, without any regard for what the long-term effects are on the institution.

If a less educated, less prudent, quicker-to-anger audience is the intended goal, then allow me to lay aside my pen and let this one through. I get that all institutions in America come down to the functional property of their ability to make a buck. There are no sacred cows in capitalism. We have witnessed the erosion of standards in all journalistic spaces being accelerated over the last 20 years as the “new media” has unearthed the once deeply entrenched roots of journalistic standards and propriety. Of course, for those making the business decisions about the legacy of these institutions, they have no compunctions about strip-mining sacred land if that means they can find more lucrative uses for it. So instead of the stolid oaks of journalistic integrity, we get the dent corn of basketball coverage: It tastes bad, there’s too much of it, and it’s terrible for us.

Zach Lowe will, of course, be fine, but will the network?

Lowe will find another platform that hopefully no longer forces him to answer interminable questions about the state of the Lakers or whether a Warriors team with a losing record remains a championship contender. But this may very well prove the final litmus test for just how far ESPN can push us as an audience. Fans have been complaining about the degrading quality of the product for several years, highlighted recently by a ritualistic mass exodus from the channel during every abhorrent halftime show the network tried to force into our closed mouths during last year’s playoffs. With the departure of Woj and now Lowe, ESPN has few remaining male analysts who still curry favor with the basketball intelligentsia. Now, somewhere, an executive at the network is saying, “Yeah, that’s the fucking point.” The average fan may not want to be included in the bin of those of us who geek out about the nuance of defending Spain actions or how to fade on a ghost screen. But historically, the way you turn the average fan into an avid fan is by making them deeply invested in all facets of the game they love. Lowe carries a ton of weight, not just because he may very well be the standard bearer for basketball analysts and writers, but because for many of us, he was the last remaining tie to what brought us to the network so many years ago—ESPN was once a place to geek out about sports as we watched, listened, and read, as people more knowledgeable than ourselves educated us about the game.

I realize that I may just be shouting into the void here, though I am assuming by the very fact that you made it this far into the article that some of what I’m saying resonates with you. I know that the reality of change is that those least willing to accept it are always those most affected by it. I am struggling to accept that the new ways in which basketball coverage is being dispensed may ultimately be the new given circumstances that I just have to accept. But I have never watched shows like NBA Today because I want to shout at the screen as another specious argument is made or to complain about being bludgeoned over the head by a repetitiously wielded dumb trope. I watched it because I was benefited by the experience of listening to those more knowledgeable than myself—or at least I used to.