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While the low-brow content of Fox Sports Net has not yet made for significant ratings gains, it has made an enormous impact on ESPN.

First, ESPN was so impressed with vulgar-shock comedian Jay Mohr that it recruited him from FSN. Then it launched an all-day, every-day promo campaign for Mohr that included a clip of him calling attention to his crotch.

And now, as advertised, Mohr's prime-time ESPN show is so littered with sexual gutterisms - off-camera ESPN employees are fired for much less - that ESPN has out-Foxed Fox.

Mohr's ESPN show Tuesday night was loaded with sophomoric, telegraphed references, verbal and graphic, to drooling sex, especially oral sex. Oral sex seemed to be the theme of the first part of the show.

Of course, when Rev. Al Sharpton appeared as Mohr's special guest, Mohr grew respectful. In a particularly nauseating exchange, Sharpton told Mohr, "I really love your show." Mohr, if he was truly such a wise guy, might've lampooned such a comment by saying, "Name one thing, other than yourself, Reverend, that you've actually seen on this show." Instead, Mohr seemed flattered.

Meanwhile, the saddest transition in TV seems to be occurring at ESPN, where a powerful and valued sports network now regularly exploits sports to lure the omnipotent young male demographic through vulgar-for-vulgarity's-sake presentations, the kind that, not long ago, would've been out of the question. Doubly so for a Disney-owned network.

And, while Mohr went for the crotch, ESPN, in other shows, celebrated the female-sensitive 30th anniversary of Title IX. Or is ESPN out to repeal it?

In Mohr's case, ESPN excuses itself, rationalizes its misdeed, by noting that his show is prefaced with an adult-content warning. Right. Please don't throw me in the briar patch.

No self-respecting adult would watch such a show, nor is it aimed at any. Like the WWF (now the WWE) and excessively violent video games, ESPN provides a warning fully knowing that kids and teens - mostly male - will comprise a big chunk of the audience.

And why does anything on an ostensibly all-sports network, at eight o'clock on a Tuesday night, need a content warning? This was "Look What We Can Get Away With Television" and ESPN knows it.

And ESPN employees, mandated to attend sexual sensitivity training seminars, continue to be suspended and terminated for behavior in ESPN's house that ESPN eagerly encourages in your house.

Know this: If you were invited into the homes of ESPN execs, then chose to entertain them and their families with the same bits presented by Jay Mohr on Tuesday, they'd call the cops.

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And, while Mohr went for the crotch, ESPN, in other shows, celebrated the female-sensitive 30th anniversary of Title IX. Or is ESPN out to repeal it?

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