The ESPYs used to be appointment TV for anyone who cares about sports culture. Wednesday night's show turned into a live group chat roast instead, with Barstool personalities picking apart everything from the opening number to the red carpet fits in real time. The complaints started early and never really stopped.
GET THE FUCKING BANANAS OFF MY TV!!!! 🤮🤢
Portnoy's disgust lines up with a broader backlash to the opening act: the Savannah Bananas kicked off the show at Lincoln Center with a three-minute original song-and-dance number, backflips and stilts included, and it got dragged online almost immediately for eating up time that could've gone to actual athletes. By the time Pat and Cons were tweeting, the vibe had already curdled.
Are the ESPY's unwatchable? I keep waiting for it to get good and it's just not happening
Cons piled on right behind him, saying he didn't even know the ESPYs were airing until someone had to text him about it — which, for a show that used to be a can't-miss summer staple, is its own kind of indictment. Tommy Smokes took a different angle, needling the athletes who treat winning an ESPY like it's the Nobel Prize when everyone in the building knows the awards are a glorified popularity contest.
Not everything got torched, though. The genuinely bizarre Mike Tyson moment, presenting alongside Jake Paul and DJ Khaled and appearing stunned that Shohei Ohtani is, in fact, a man, became the one clip people couldn't stop rewatching for the right reasons.
I haven't stopped watching this video. Tyson was truly shocked Ohtani was a guy
Then there's Jayson Tatum, who showed up to a black-tie red carpet in what Steven Cheah called, bluntly, his nicest undershirt. It became its own mini-controversy inside the bigger one, with the Barstool crew weighing in on fashion instead of basketball.
Thanks for wearing your nicest undershirt to this black tie event Jayson Tatum. What a douche.
That undershirt debate got its own roundtable treatment, with BarstoolBigCat shrugging it off entirely while Cheah stood by his take that it was kind of rude, and the conversation immediately pivoting to whatever the Savannah Bananas wore on the carpet too. It's a small moment, but it captures the whole night: less about who won what, more about who looked ridiculous doing it.
“Did you guys see and/or care that Jayson Tatum wore an undershirt to the ESPY’s?” -@StevenCheah “I did not see… Don’t care” -@BarstoolBigCat “Thought it was kinda rude” -@StevenCheah “Did you see what the Savanna Bananas wore to the ESPY’s?” -@clubtrillion @BarstoolYak
None of this means the ESPYs are going away. ABC will run it back next summer, Ohtani will probably win more hardware, and some other awkward red-carpet fit will get roasted into oblivion. But when the loudest reactions to your award show are about a banana-themed halftime number and a guy's undershirt, that's not exactly the night ESPN drew up.