re: Why does ESPN hate college baseball?

Honestly, baseball just sux. Whether its major league or little league. Its slow, methodical, you don't see great athletes. Softball is no better but its just as good.

Tell me how many softball stadiums can easily eclipse the 10,000 mark for attendance.

Softball has gotten better ratings because ESPN puts it on during prime time and the CWS at random day slots.

The only people that actually care about softball are player parents and lesbians.

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you don't see great athletes.

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If you really think this, you are a dumbass. Remember when Michael Jordan decided to try baseball? The best NBA player in history couldn't make it out of double A baseball.

Espn came out of the closet completely after the George Floyd debacle. It's as woke as the mainstream media to anyone who pays attention.

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Of course it’s more popular, softball gets far more coverage and promotion than baseball. Baseball would be more popular than softball if it got the same promotion

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I’ve been saying this for years. Same thing with women’s basketball.

They have been promoting the shite out of women’s sports for a while now.

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Not everything. You can still be a token character in a commercial if you're morbidly obese and don't mind acting like you were born two weeks ago.

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or if you date Taylor Swift and do tv commercials for Pfizer vaccinations

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I’ve been saying this for years. Same thing with women’s basketball.

They have been promoting the shite out of women’s sports for a while now.

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Every month, a bunch of VPs/directors at ESPN's office view a report that tells them what ratings each type of programming brought along with the demographic data across viewers.

If that data indicates that college baseball viewership has plateaued, and that women's basketball's or softball's hasn't, they're going to put it on and hype it up.

And the data probably says that growing in the female demographic is the only way ESPN will survive long enough to pay the SEC what it owes over the life of its contract.

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Tell me how many softball stadiums can easily eclipse the 10,000 mark for attendance.

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Correct. There are four schools that regularly pull that many baseball fans. Median D1 attendance for both sports is about 500 though.
Softball is roughly equal to baseball on TV and is on the rise instead of continuous decline. Softball also gets an interest boost every few years because of the Olympics. Baseball did have a resurgence last year that temporarily brought its ratings to where they were a decade ago, but that was attributed almost entirely to Louisiana.

Actually ESPN was the first to showcase college baseball back in the mid 1980’s. They had Sunday Night Baseball featuring college teams during the regular season. And Monday Night Baseball as well. That was when the networks were still televising MLB.
It was successful for 5-7 years. But MLB transitioned to ESPN and then college baseball was relegated to the back burner except for the CWS. I always thought they made mistake there. Had they continued to televise college baseball in addition to the MLB, I believe the sport would have continued to grow.
It stayed that way until the SR’s were instituted and they were televised.
Fast forward to the launch of the SECN and college baseball did get some more air time.
Now over the last 15 years or so softball has grown.
Being that there is only so much airtime available it is understandable that softball is going to get some airplay.

ESPN does not hate college baseball but there are other things competing for airtime so it is understandable that college baseball does not get more airtime.

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The same reason they don’t broadcast AA baseball? No one nationally cares.

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Nailed it.