In a move surprising to little among the blogging world, Dan Patrick announced today he was leaving ESPN effective August 17th. Rumors have been circulating that Patrick asked for more money and ESPN simply said no. I for one don't know exactly what happened but we now know that ESPN has turned into an 800 pound gorilla with Chris Berman cold sores.

Oh wait, that is Chris Berman. My bad. Back to Dan.

Patrick has been with ESPN for over 18 years and had this statement ready for the press, the real one, not Sportscrack:

"I've spent a third of my life at ESPN," Patrick said in a statement. "All my children were born while I was employed here. I feel privileged to have had this opportunity and I have extremely mixed emotions about leaving. With that said, I told ESPN that I believe it's time for me to try something different, something that will also be challenging and rewarding. While I'm not sure what that will be, I am grateful to ESPN for its willingness to allow me to pursue new endeavors."

I'm not going to lie when I say this but I'm going to miss Dan. He has been around ESPN as long as I can remember and was a fixture on the Sportscenter desk back in the good old days (early to mid 90's). ESPN has slowly turned into shit whether it be radio (Colin Cowherd talks about ESPN/ABC sports ratings like we actually care to a nauseam), television (fucking hot dog eating contests and spelling bees...are you fucking kidding me?), or their website (must be an ESPN Insider to read the same articles you can read on SI.com or Foxsports.com). Since Disney bought ESPN it has slowly lost it's soul which for people in the dark was "hard to find" sports highlights (I'm not talking about stupid Nascar bullshit or Arena League Football which ESPN now owns). They are all about the almighty dollar and/or promoting their synergy.

Anyways, I want to praise Patrick for leaving and my hope is that he takes his sidekick Keith Olbermann with him to either Fox Sports or some new sports network created by Mark Cuban. Somebody with a lot of money in television needs to step up and challenge ESPN and make a competing sports network. Hire Patrick and Olbermann to be your anchor hosts and steal Bob Ley and Scott Van Pelt from ESPN and give them their own shows. Poor Bob Ley is the only real journalist on ESPN anymore and yet we can only watch "Outside the Lines" when we are passed out drunk at 3:30 in the morning.

So in conclusion I want to thank Patrick for his insight, tough questions, and great attitude and energy he brought to ESPN and hope that somebody will recognize his talents and hire the man to anchor a new Sports network. ESPN has been bending over the sports world too long and fucking the fans with a floppy without the decency to ask what we want!

Oh, by the way, what we want has absolutely nothing to do with driving a car or shoving weiners down your throat or watching some kid stutter the words clitoris you ESPN corporation jackoffs. Serenity now!

You can email me your thoughts on anything sports or pop related. matt@sportscrack.com