Unless you’re of a certain vintage and/or a student of TV history you might now know that ESPN is actually an acronym for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network. It wasn’t supposed to have that name; it was always intended to be a 24/7 destination for sports. But when it launched in the fall of 1979 there was already an SPN network out there on many of the 12 and 37 channel lineups that we considered to be a cornucopia of choices. It was a nondescript hodgepodge of ancient reruns and Oral Roberts-produced programming–including a lot of hours of religious programming–being run out of Tulsa, Oklahoma. But it was significant enough to force that E onto what became the Worldwide Leader.
At various times in ESPN’s existence someone has remembered this otherwise forgotten fact and attempted to expand its array into sports-adjacent entertainment series. The most visible and notorious example came in 2003 when it regrettably launched a Tuesday night drama called PLAYMAKERS. I call it regrettable because it was a series which FX had the chance to acquire and one whose pilot I tested. We had just successfully launched THE SHIELD and every independent producer with a hot idea that they couldn’t get HBO to meet with them on was flocking to our doorstep and even letting us actually let carefully recruited target viewers weigh in. Let’s just say I’ve seen better results. ESPN did get an audience–per Wikipedia, the show was their most-viewed content outside of pro and college football. But they also pissed off the NFL enough to the point where they nearly lost the rights to broadcast their games. It got cancelled, and they eventually pivoted to well-produced documentaries from top filmmakers under the 30 for 30 banner.
But faced with another dearth of Tuesday night programming, and perhaps cowtowing to corporate synergy efforts, last night they threw out the first two episodes of a quasi-scripted series called RUNNING WITH THE WOLVES. Here’s how TV INSIDER’s Alyssa Norwin tactfully described it in her preview article that accompanied the trailer drop earlier this month:
Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos are already cohosts of the morning show Live With Kelly and Mark, but they’re now adding another television project to their plates. On Wednesday, July 9, ESPN announced the couple’s upcoming four-part series, Running With the Wolves.
The ESPN Original series will “give fans a front row seat to Mark Consuelos and Kelly Ripa’s journey as owners of rising Italian soccer club Campobasso FC.” Consuelos and Ripa became owners of the club in 2022 and have “helped breathe new life into the once-struggling team and reignited passion among the club’s loyal fanbase,” according to a press release.
With injuries and a “relentless head coach” taking a toll on the players, Consuelos and Ripa are also left to deal with pressure from fans. “Through it all, viewers get an unprecedented look at how Mark and Kelly balance the pressures of ownership, family life, their careers, and the dream of leading Campobasso FC to glory,” the release confirms.
I’ll confess I’m not a fan of either of these folks. I’ve known Ripa and many who travel in her professional circle for decades and both my own experience and many of theirs are anything but positive ones. She has parlayed a public persona of likability with envious middle-aged women and an arguably hot body that tantalizes a lot of male executives into becoming the queen of what’s left of traditional daytime television, and by default now gets to work with her himbo hubby whose scripted romance on ALL MY CHILDREN led to a storybook real-life coupling. She’s survived three previous co-hosts on LIVE!–Regis Philbin, Ryan Seacrest and Michael Strahan–who I’ve personally known and privately pled the fifth on discussing any details of their experiences. But Disney being Disney, and Kelly still being a significant source of revenue, this somehow became an idea worth greenlighting.
I guess my greatest wrath is reserved for the fact that if this plotline sounds familiar, it’s because practically the same ingredients have been used in a breakthrough FX series that, natch, we’ve mused about before. And Counselos essentially admitted his absolute lack of original thought in a interview he granted to DECIDER’s Alex Vena that dropped yesterday:
I think that Ted Lasso, that show did so much of the heavy lifting for shows like ours because the American public is now aware of this relegation-promotion thing that we don’t have in domestic sports here in the United States. It just doesn’t exist. I think it’s fantastic, actually. I think that the level of peril that you are faced with every season, it’s not just losing. It’s being relegated to a lower division. I think shows like Ted Lasso and even [Welcome to] Wrexham really explained to the American public in a way that became easy for them to digest. They’ve done a lot of the heavy lifting for us.
Allowing that those shows did “a lot” of the heavy lifting is like Dion Waiters saying that Lebron James “helped” him get an NBA championship ring. There is literally nothing that Ryan Reynolds and Rob Mac (he dropped the “elhenny” recently, ya know) did in WREXHAM that Mark and Kelly didn’t at least try and emulate in last night’s episodes. And unlike the scriped genius of LASSO, there aren’t compelling characters on the team to capture our attention. What we have is a lens into the opulent and entitied world that Ripa and Counselos share amidst long-established friendships with other New York power elites like Andy Cohen and Anderson Cooper. And considering that it appears more and more that Ripa’s ability to still remain petite and attractive well into her 50s has come with a Faustain pack that has her voice sounding much more like she’s a drag queen it’s understandable why they’d be fans.
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL’s John Anderson channeled much of my own consternation in the review he authored:
Are foreign sports teams the new celebrity accessory? Our hosts are in on that joke: The first thing that pops up in their ESPN series “Running With the Wolves” is an interview last year with Ryan Reynolds…”Wolves,” also the nickname of the Campobasso players, is a different kind of show than “Wrexham,” beginning with the fact that Ms. Ripa and Mr. Consuelos are married, and Messrs. Reynolds and McElhenney are not. The chemical equations are different.
Much of the reason the Ripa-Consuelos team has been successful on TV is that they are enthusiastic, quarrelsome in an amusing way, but also intense. Even physically. Tight packages of humanity. Concentrated. Distilled. But ill-equipped for the anxieties of owning a European sports team…And the running gag is that Ms. Ripa apparently thought buying a troubled calcio squad was all about Mr. Consuelos scratching a sports itch and would be the gateway to him buying her a villa in Italy. As of episode 4 of this four-part season (there will be more), no real estate has been acquired. But there’s enough stress to fill St. Peter’s Basilica.
I’m probably more upset by that last daunting hanging chad of an afterthought–there will be more– that anything else. Nothing I’ve seen would suggest that this is worthy of a renewal and I’d contend that the likelihood of their daytime audience finding their way to ESPN prime time is at best aspirational. And I can’t imagine hardcore live sports fans not seeking out alternatives when this is on. The fact that the balance of this season is being burned off tomorrow night against NBC’s coverage of the NFL exhibition season opener would seem to suggest that the braintrust in Bristol know what they’re dealing with.
But in a digital-first world where algorithmic discovery after the fact is always a possibility, I’ll allow that a full-fledged Disney bundle subscriber with Hulu Live Channels might find their way to this show at some point, particularly after an extended discussion about the team on a LIVE episode with fewer real celebrities shilling their own sh-t than usual. Lord knows Ripa and Counselos have seemingly cashed in every friendship and favor they have with their limited circle of friends to make us aware of this, so maybe there will be enough quid-pro-quo bookings over time to limit those conversations.
Still, I have a hard time believing sampling of what I saw will build a sticky audience. Ya know, FX has been forced to air live sports at various times in its existence, including a recent package of United Football League games that produced some of their smallest audiences in recent memory. Right in line with the secondary major league baseball games without home market exclusivity they aired under FOX management. Those sorts of things belong on ESPN. This belongs on Disney Plus–or perhaps ABC itself as summer filler–if it must see the light of day at all.
Or maybe just ESPN+ as a value-added offering to their standalone service so that ratings–let alone content restrictions–won’t matter. Then at least they can include the makeup sex. And then better tie algorithmically to something like PLAYMAKERS. 
Until next time…