--- description: Breaking news and analysis from time.com. Politics, world news, photos, video, tech reviews, health, science, and entertainment news. title: SportsCenter image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1fe679c9db40f5e3/69869f311eebf763bc37235b/t100_tv_sportscenter1.jpg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- Aug 12, 2014 # _SportsCenter_ by [TIME Staff](/author/time-staff/) ## TIME Staff Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close  Everett A confession: I am not a sports fan, and rarely turn on the TV to get a score or a highlight of anything. And yet I watch _SportsCenter_ — indirectly, anyway — every time I see a _Daily Show_, a _Keith Olbermann Countdown_ or even a certain brand of smart-assed commercial. For sports fans, it’s delivered the news and numbers, at all hours of the day, since ESPN began in 1979\. For TV at large, it pioneered a kind of loose, allusive hipster humor, part _Caddyshack_, part _Monty Python_ — “Bring me the finest meats and cheeses in all the land!”—that’s spread throughout cable and even to news desks. Its best host pairings — like Olbermann and Dan Patrick, or Stuart Scott and Rich Eisen—were as much comic duos as newsmen. (Aaron Sorkin took on the format in his highbrow sitcom _Sports Night_.) As a sports show, I’m sure _SportsCenter_ was a fine enough staple; as a TV comedy, it was en fuego. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https://time.com/collections/all-time-100-tv-shows/3103816/sportscenter/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/collections/all-time-100-tv-shows/3103816/sportscenter/"},"headline":"SportsCenter","datePublished":"2014-08-12T15:31:03.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-02T23:01:51.189Z","description":"","url":"https://time.com/collections/all-time-100-tv-shows/3103816/sportscenter/","keywords":["Sports topic"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1fe679c9db40f5e3/69869f311eebf763bc37235b/t100_tv_sportscenter1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME Staff","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/time-staff/"}],"creator":"TIME Staff","articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1fe679c9db40f5e3/69869f311eebf763bc37235b/t100_tv_sportscenter1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/collections/all-time-100-tv-shows/3103816/sportscenter/","name":"SportsCenter"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"SportsCenter","description":"As a sports show, I'm sure SportsCenter was a fine enough staple; as a TV comedy, it was en fuego.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/3DXOXE99/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2007-09-05T15:01:13.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/3DXOXE99.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/collections/all-time-100-tv-shows/3103816/sportscenter/","duration":"PT38S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/collections/all-time-100-tv-shows/3103816/sportscenter/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```