Goal Through The Proper Channels

ESPN Classic (“Classic”) is a branding that applies to a number of cable television channels throughout the world that air sports-related programming. There are Classic networks in Canada (through TSN ⇒), throughout Europe, the Middle East and Africa that rerun country-appropriate archived game broadcasts The American version currently only shows reruns of Entertainment and Sports Programming Network ⇒ (“ESPN”) programming. This mirrors other networks such as Cable News Network ⇒ that are able to do things straight internationally, but are financially under pressure to reinforce the bubble that American audiences want to believe.

Classic was created as a channel when the former Classic Sports Network (“CSN”) was merged into ESPN in 2005. In much the same way, the channel’s logo as printed on this shirt was also a combination of the two logs. The anonymity of the celebrating athlete within the “C” is a welcome change from other free shirts that often attempt to personalize human figures.

TV Party Tonight

I never have had personal access to Classic. By far my clearest memories of Classic are of watching Cheap Seats ⇒ over at Donor & Receiver Nick*‘s. Though the show was clearly a sports-related rip-off of Mystery Science Theater 3000 ⇒, some of the stuff that the Sklar brothers would watch was amusing even on mute. For a show that only lasted four seasons, Cheap Seats sure seemed to have quite a bit of airtime.

The memory that I want to have, but have not been able to experience so far, is of a rebroadcasted Rocky Marciano prize fight filmed from way back in the stands with a voiceover of a Marciano impersonator. Donor & Receiver Brian* informed me that he watched such a thing on Classic and that he would have called me at that moment had it not been very likely that I would have been sleeping. I hope that I have not over-hyped the actual episode with my imagination. I do hope one day to see this video, but I admit that I lose hope as the years grow long.

Fun On The Margins

Sports leagues have undertaken making their own channels to show archived games to die-hard historical fans willing to pay to watch. This setup probably works better for fans of individual sports, and it may provide additional funds for the leagues in time. This demand will probably always remain niche.

Entertainment at the edge of sports is easier for me to get into than full rebroadcasts. I, for one, would prefer to watch NFL Films of the Facenda and Spence era ⇒, former New York Rangers of the National Hockey League ⇒ do Vidal Sassoon commercials ⇒ or former Major League Baseball player George Brett of the Kansas City Royals discuss… “stuff” with a coupe of teammates ⇒ than many sporting contests after those events occur. Sports is certainly not the only thing that generates amusements at the margin of its activity, but everything else is not germane to this free shirt. Classic is not the station that would serve me this type of content. Fortunately, the Web is around to host such content to my delight.

Beyond, though including, sports programming of the past I like the way that color television shot on film from earlier decades looks compared to the super clean and amazingly high definition of today as an aesthetic. I do not mean to imply that the programming in general was better back then or now. What I do mean is that imperfections and experimentation can have a certain beauty to it that clear and unambiguous representations do not have as often.