Thank you for your form letter asking in all caps at the top “IS THERE A PROBLEM?”  Yes, you asshole.  You can’t take a hint.

My mom got me a subscription to ESPN the Mag about a year ago, and I want to let it expire because your mag  is trash. When you write, “It has come to my attention that despite numberous attempts to contact you, we have still not heard back.,”  I want to throttle you. You haven’t heard back  because I’m a polite person.  I don’t ordinarily respond angrily to form letters, but get a clue man.

I didn’t respond to your first six paper-wasting requests for me to re-subscribe.  I thought I could let the subscription lapse in peace, but you sir have push a decent person past her limit.

You ask, “Is there some sort of problem with your subscription?” Yes, and let me spell this out for you clearly.

1) Cover ads are bullshit.  I have the Yadier Molina issue next to me, the one I swiped from under my coffee table where it was collecting dust.  Well only half of Molina has dust on him, because the rest is covered by a half page RESUBSCRIBE ad.  What are you thinking?  I’m instantly turned off when I see your magazine.

2) Too many ads, and FAR too much self promotion.  Let’s go through the Yadier issue, and I’m going to count the pages that have either ads, columns, or features regarding ESPN personalities or ESPN programming.  Ready?

Ad, ad, ad, ad, ad, ad, ad, table of contents, contents continued, ad, ad, column, column continued, ad, Stu Scott Q+A drivel, ad, mailbag about previous ESPN the Mags, ad, 2 page picture (AWESOME!), Page 2 short write up and picture, Page 2′s Big 10, ad, Jesus…more Page 2, ad, Page 2 with Gina Carano, mini ad with video game thing, more Page 2, ad, Page 2 still with sidebar ad, ad, Hey Mike and Mike…I hate these guys!, ad, and FINALLY we arrive at a STORY.  I got to Yadier 34 pages later in a 76 page issue.

Damn.  CONTENT please, not self-promotion and a sea of beer and deodorant ads.

3) MORE self-promotion.  Your magazine is a machine, essentially one big ad for ESPN and it’s so obvious.  That’s the problem, I’m AWARE that I’m reading an ad.  Subtlety is lost on you in a way I can’t forgive.  Reading your magazine is painful.  Please get to the CONTENT, because…

4) It’s all your mag is surviving on. I don’t know whose idea it was to put the Bill Simmons or Rick Riley columns online nearly a week before the columns run in the Mag, but that’s a bad move.  What’s my incentive to read your high-rollers in a magazine when I can find them online?  You’ll argue that’s the point, right?  You want the page views and those two draw readers. Alright….don’t run their columns in the Mag. They’re already outdated by the time the Mag hits my mailbox (unless Riley is going off about cheerleaders and dentists again in one of those Evergreen flashback-to -something-I-kinda-wrote-already-in-2002 columns….).  Instead, give me smart content that I’m not going to see anywhere else.

I LOVE the longer Outside the Lines stories.  I love anything that does NOT have to do with Farve, the Patriots, or what Lane Kiffen said. Treat me like I’m a smart reader, ok? Give me the stories I wouldn’t otherwise see, because ESPN is a juggernaut and has the resources to do fantastic story-telling. Reward intelligence and intrepid reporting.

5) I’m flipping thru this issue for more things to tell you….Oh, here’s a two-page ad on the swag rich people get for going to the ESPYs. Gag.

You get the point, Mr. Lopez. Cut the ESPN self-love and treat me like I care about sports.  Because I do, truly.  But I’m not getting sports from you in what’s supposedly a sports mag.  I’m getting saturated with the opinions of Mike and Mike and Sportsnation pie charts. Do not want.

In closing Sir, thanks for a good vent.  NOW LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE.