If you hadn't heard yet, you've heard now; The Sports Reporters is back. The show, which began in 1988 and ran until 2017 in different iterations, was back again on ESPN's YouTube channel on Tuesday. It came back with a different look, one in which only host Jeremy Schaap was in studio and all four panelists were from their home offices. Another new wrinkle is that all four panelists weren't reporters, but were instead all broadcasters who do NFL games. Joe Buck, Mike Tirico, Kevin Harlan, and Ian Eagle did delve into their careers as broadcasters especially as it related to social media feedback.
Without knowing if there will be future episodes, though one would guess that there would be, we can only hope that this episode was a demo to work out some kinks. Those kinks included only Harlan using an actual microphone while Buck seemed to use his computer's microphone and Tirico using AirPods. I couldn't figure out Eagle's setup. It was a little odd on an ESPN produced streaming show to hear weird noises in the background that you'd hear while on a work Zoom call in addition to audio that didn't seem to be properly normalized. There were delays during transitions that made for slightly awkward television that would've benefited from better editing. ESPN could easily send their guest headsets or even USB mics which would be better than the audio we heard on episode one of the relaunch.
The storylines weren't all that interesting and leaned on pop culture like upcoming NFL storylines including Taylor Swift. What was also missing was the charm and chemistry of the old show. While it's hard to have great chemistry on what is more similar to a five-person podcast than a television show, again, better editing could've helped there.
If they clean up some of the video and audio issues, the show could see some new life especially if they bring in strong names like on episode one. But it doesn't seem that the same DNA that made the original show so good exists in this one. While some of the reporters were definitely far too full of themselves on the old show, there was a competitive playfulness that co-existed. Here, it was four men trying to make sure each other was comfortable. That made for comfortable television, but not must-see.
If you go back and watch some of the older episodes, you can see tension when things like race were brought up, but at least it was handled with honesty and back and forth conversation. The only real conversation that was had here was dealing with concussions and how the Damar Hamlin situation was handled on the field.
At least, the parting shot was back. Jeremy Schaap's quick takedown of Coach Prime, Deion Sanders' handling of tough local media was the only part of the show that felt like it had any link to the old show. And of course, Jeremy is the son of the second and best host, his father Dick, who died in 2001 while he was still hosting the show.
If they fix some of the kinks and have Jeremy steer the ship a bit more tightly, the show might have legs. Otherwise, it's too similar to other talking head shows that are already out there and better.
