ESPN aired the 50,000th episode of SportsCenter last night, an incredible accomplishment for the self-proclaimed Worldwide Leader. That works out to roughly 1,500 episodes a year for the the 33 years of ESPN's existence. But as we can see below, those 50,000 episodes have not been distributed evenly.

Plotting the various dates of milestone episodes, we can see that SportsCenters occurred at a fairly steady rate up until the mid- to late-2000s. And while it took 23 years to air the first 25,000 (~3/day), it has only taken ten years to air the last 25,000 (~7/day).

What makes this acceleration even more incredible is that SportsCenter used to be a 30 minute program. And sometime in the 2000s, 60 minutes became the standard format. So not only are the more episodes, but the number of SportsCenter hours has jumped even more.

But hey, when ESPN is trying to fill the airtime on ESPN, ESPN 2, ESPNU, ESPN News, ESPN 8 (The Ocho), what's a few extra episodes of SportsCenter among friends?

ESPN SportsCenter

Data via ESPN