ESPN thrives on controversy.
Examine, for example, the ongoing career of the irrepressible Keith Olbermann.
Now the sports broadcasting behemoth is dealing with two widely discussed issues.
The first will end this month when the winner of the NBA Finals is determined.
The second issue will smolder like a burning firecracker that won’t burn out until July 15.
ESPN has been taken to task in broadcasting, print and basketball circles for putting Mark Jackson, a former Golden State Warriors coach, on the ABC broadcasting team as an analyst during the league’s championship series.
How can Jackson, who was fired by Golden State in May 2014 with one year left on his contract, provide a balanced account of the Warriors’ performance against the Cleveland Cavaliers?
Jackson was asked that question during a conference call before the Warriors’ overtime victory in Game 1 of the Finals.
“My job is to tell a story. … The story dictates itself to me and I relay the message to the viewers as well as I possibly can,” Jackson said. “Some people don’t like the story, but … the facts are the facts.
“That’s going to be my job whether it’s the Warriors or anybody else.”
Any critics of Jackson were basically ignored Thursday night because of the drama that produced the highest Game 1 rating ever on ABC.
The audience was 24 percent larger than last season’s Game 1, which matched the San Antonio Spurs against the Miami Heat.
I don’t understand why Jackson, or any other broadcaster, should be a third man in a basketball crew courtside.
Three is always a crowd. Jeff Van Gundy is an excellent analyst and Mike Breen remains adequate as the play-by-play man.
The other controversy transcends the sports scene for obvious reasons.
ESPN’s decision to present Caitlyn (formerly Bruce) Jenner with the Arthur Ashe Courage Award during the ESPYs program has kicked off a huge debate — much of it nasty.
The network has been accused of honoring the former Olympic decathlon champion as an audience ratings ploy, which may or may not be true.
Still, keep in mind that the ESPYs program will, for the first time, move from cable to ABC, which televised Diane Sawyer’s lengthy interview and profile of Jenner in April.
The result was a spectacular audience response.
The ESPYs program, first aired in 1993, always is produced in Hollywood-entertainment style.
I doubt that any young athlete dedicated to his or her sport is dedicated to winning a future ESPY award.
Meanwhile, the Internet is alive with support for Lauren Hill as the posthumous Arthur Ashe Courage Award winner this year.
Hill, who was 19 when she died April 10, battled inoperable brain cancer and formed a nonprofit cancer research organization while continuing to play basketball for Mount St. Joseph University in Cincinnati.
The people she inspired included Cavaliers star LeBron James.
Ashe was a Grand Slam tennis star who was 49 when he died in 1993 of AIDS. He contracted HIV from a blood transfusion he received during heart surgery in the 1980s.
Ashe, who battled racial prejudice early in his tennis career, dedicated the final years of his life to his foundation, which still helps people with AIDS and HIV.
Longtime Denver journalist Dusty Saunders writes about sports media each Monday in The Denver Post. Contact him at tvtime@comcast.net.
TV coverage of WNBA games set to start
Fans of women’s basketball remind that coverage of the WNBA’s 2015 season begins with a doubleheader at 11 a.m. Sunday on ESPN2.
The Indiana Fever (2012 league champion) meets the Chicago Sky (2014 finalist), followed by the Minnesota Lynx (2013 champion) against the defending champion Phoenix Mercury.
ESPN and ESPN2 will televise 11 WNBA games during the regular season.
