Pardon the Interruption

Abstract: ESPN’s Pardon the Interruption represents a turning point in sports programming, the beginning of a shift away from game recaps and highlights and toward the sports debate format. The success of PTI inspired twenty-four-hour sports networks to embrace debate as a strategy for maintaining relevance in a digital age. Ethan Tussey argues that the ubiquity of the sports debate format has effectively pushed the politics of sports out from the margins and into mainstream conversation.

This essay may be found on page 373 of the printed volume.