ESPN’s much-hyped morning show Get Up (which oddly has an exclamation point in its official title) appears to be a failure to date.
The program backed by an extensive publicity campaign premiered on April 2 as a replacement for the traditional a.m. SportsCenter and has struggled in the ratings since then. It features principal host Mike Greenberg along with co-hosts Michelle Beadle and ex-NBA player Jalen Rose, who broadcast from an expensive new studio in lower Manhattan in New York City rather than from the so-called Worldwide Leader’s headquarters in Bristol, Conn. ESPN is paying the trio about $15 million in combined salary.
To create Get Up, ESPN ended the 18-year, Mike & Mike (Greenberg and Golic) radio/TV simulcast partnership and relocated Beadle from the LA-based SportsNation.
The latest ratings data, revealed by Fox Sports Radio host Clay Travis on his Outkick the Coverage blog, is hardly good news for ESPN execs
“Get Up, aka WokeCenter 2.0, had just 197,000 viewers this past Thursday from 7-10 am eastern, a whopping 33% off the ratings ESPN had for a traditional SportsCenter airing at the same time in the exact same June week last year. SportsCenter, which aired from Bristol and cost a fraction of the $35 million yearly budget of Get Up, had 294,000 viewers last year.
That sounds bad, but later in the day it was even worse.
High Noon, the new PC Bromani and Pablo Torre let’s talk about how much we don’t like sports for an hour but how everything is racist instead show, that debuted a couple of weeks ago at noon eastern, also hit a new series low, posting 193,000 viewers, which was down a whopping 47% over the number of viewers a noon SportsCenter had in the same Thursday time slot last year…
UPDATE: Both shows did worse on Friday of last week, with Get Up posting just 196,000 viewers, compared to 339,000 watching SportsCenter last year, down a massive 42% and High Noon posting just 191,000 viewers, down a whopping 54% from last year’s SportsCenter viewership.”
Self-described “radical moderate” Travis, a longtime ESPN critic, describes the two new offerings, which form part of the legacy of former ESPN President John Skipper, as WokeCenter 2.0 and 3.0 in a reference to the network pushing a far-left, social justice agenda on the sports platform. New president Jimmy Pitaro likely has some difficult decisions ahead with regard to Get Up and High Noon.
Friday’s Get Up & High Noon both set all time low ratings for @espn original programming. https://t.co/J4NfSy8kbY
— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) June 18, 2018
“[B]ased on the numbers for the last two weeks, the show is not growing at all and the patience has to be wearing thin…If the cast stays intact by the start of the NFL season, they’ll most likely remain together until after the Super Bowl, so the next six week or so should be very interesting,” Sports Illustrated added about Get Up.
Watch Clay Travis discuss Get Up and other sports media-related issues on his daily Outkick the Show Periscope broadcast (NSFW).
WokeCenter 2.0 & 3.0 hit all time ESPN ratings low, Harvard discrimination/Ed Werder, State on fire, Jemele on Kell… https://t.co/0ifspr2Q6o
— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) June 19, 2018