Edited sentence: ESPN has been criticized for having an East Coast bias, in that they allegedly devote a disproportionate amount of time to sports teams in the Northeastern United States.ESPN is also known to provide more prominent coverage to sports in which it owns a vested stake (such as the Arena Football League, and the WNBA), while reducing or eliminating coverage when the opposite is true (such as the National Hockey League, after ESPN gave up the broadcast rights to Versus in 2005).The all-sports network also devotes much of its airtime to  "fan favorites" (teams that draw the highest ratings), such as the Dallas Cowboys, Notre Dame Fighting Irish, Los Angeles Lakers, and New York teams, and focusing on popular players like Kobe Bryant, Lebron James, Barry Bonds and Alex Rodriguez.The lack of coverage of some sports may be due to low ratings for coverage, an attempt by ESPN to draw attention to properties it owns and/or restrictions on highlight use by other networks and the leagues themselves