I guess the difference is that I would rather poke my eyes out with skewers than listen to ESPN's brand of "sports". I never watch Sportscenter, and I think ESPN has pretty much singlehandedly ruined sports journalism.
I don't consider their "sports" to be sports anyway. It's all sensationalized and personality based. Just grab any story on TMZ or Perez Hilton and replace Lindsey Lohan or Britney Spears names with Barry Bonds or Brett Favre, and you have ESPN. It's all about heros, villains and hype.
I enjoy numbers and statistics (which is why I would take Bob Sturm or Norm Hitzges' sports knowledge over anyone in the Dallas media, by a large margin). Statistical analysis is like kryptonite to ESPN. They pride themselves in being "the REAL sports channel" but they openly mock people who are into fantasy leagues, the draft, statistics or things like training camp as "sports nerds". They call anyone who follows the draft past the 2nd round as a loser. The Ticket covers all 7 rounds of the draft live. Which is the real sports channel?
The Ticket talks about a sports subject for 30 minutes and then moves on to a new subject. ESPN talks about sports for 30 minutes, and then recylces the same topic spouting the exact same opinions for the next 24 hours until it's all just a wall of whitewashed sound.