I don't know anything about how ESPN's business operates, but I am incredibly skeptical of companies that push hard to find people passionate about whatever the company is doing. All too often that equates with working people longer hours for lower pay, preying on their love for the subject at hand to get them to accept a raw deal. Game dev is I guess the canonical example of this.
I get it, though: an employee who doesn't need an explainer about common things in the sports world is going to get up to speed faster and be more productive than someone who needs some (or a lot of) hand-holding. (And I say this as the guy who'd come up to you and ask, "ummm what's a baseball box score?")
> I think the value of the question is that, all things being equal...
But are things often all equal? I wonder if the universe of "people who love sports and are great developers" is really large enough to fill all the job slots. If you were down to two candidates, and one didn't know much about sports but seemed to be a fantastic developer, and the other was a super sports fan and seemed like they'd get the job done, but maybe not with much excellence, who would you hire? Obviously that's a contrived situation, but hopefully you get the point I'm trying to make.
I get it, though: an employee who doesn't need an explainer about common things in the sports world is going to get up to speed faster and be more productive than someone who needs some (or a lot of) hand-holding. (And I say this as the guy who'd come up to you and ask, "ummm what's a baseball box score?")
> I think the value of the question is that, all things being equal...
But are things often all equal? I wonder if the universe of "people who love sports and are great developers" is really large enough to fill all the job slots. If you were down to two candidates, and one didn't know much about sports but seemed to be a fantastic developer, and the other was a super sports fan and seemed like they'd get the job done, but maybe not with much excellence, who would you hire? Obviously that's a contrived situation, but hopefully you get the point I'm trying to make.