ESPN Makes for Superb Sports Learning

I am a sports fanatic, and in particular a longtime fan of the Chicago Bears, Blackhawks and Bulls.  I don't watch TV, but ESPN programs and live or recorded sports are the exception.  Football is so popular in the US that it's on CBS, NBC and Fox, along with ESPN.  Depending on when they play, the Bears may be on any of these channels.  Hockey is on NBCSN, plus CSN for the Blackhawks.  Finally, basketball is on TNT and ESPN, and CSN and WGN for the Bulls.

But TV is old style media, isn't it.

ESPN SportsCenter

All of those TV channels I mentioned have websites, but ESPN online stands head-and-shoulders among them. While SI online sometimes has better written articles, ESPN has a wider collection plus a farther reach.  Moreover, ESPN has videos galore of actual games (highlights), interviews with athletes and coaches, and commentary from reporters and analysts.  By and large, SI lacks video, and its new website format makes it look like one of those annoying sponsored sites.  So while it was a strong secondary source of learning and enjoyment, it's now more of a lesser secondary source.   

What is another godsend?

It was on ESPN that I learned about the ruse that Lou Gehrig's wife and doctor played for months, while the baseball icon suffered and eventually died from ALS.

ESPN did a gripping expose on the domestic violence case on Ray Rice, the cover ups by his team, and the fiasco engineered by the NFL.

I'm not much into soccer, but I love watching the World Cup. I was in Dhahran for 2006, in Dubai for 2010, and finally at home in 2014, and, yes, you guessed it: ESPN had terrific coverage, commentary and analysis through the month-long soccer fest.

Speaking of that wider collection and farther reach, ESPN is active on social media.  I don't mean the channel or site itself, but rather its reporters and analysts.  In fact, they're seamlessly woven into the flow (Timeline) of my two main social media (i.e., Google+ and Twitter) among other channels, sites, reporters and analysts and of course among my friends and fellow fans.  As I mentioned in the preceding article on Wikipedia, no single learning source ought to be it.  So besides ESPN and SI, I also visit Grantland and Forbes sports money.  Other sites come my radar mainly via posts on my Timeline or in communities I am member of.