From reading through the thread at AVS it seems as though CS was chosen because it was the best matrixing surround solution available to use at the time, and is likely to be more temporary than anything. ESPN didn't have a way to do DD 5.1 so it instead picked the matrix solution they thought best moved from 2 channel to a 5 channel sound. Like was said before, for those that don't have a receiver that decodes CS, it will be outputted in ProLogicII, assuming your receiver DOES decode that. If not, you're screwed and stuck with DD 2.0, with no surround effects. If your receiver actually does CS you get some added benefits over PL2, according to the SRS rep who was posting at AVS. I think that pretty much sums up the discussion over there, please correct me if anything is wrong here, but this is what I've drawn from it.
To me I don't think it matters that much since most Rear noises are simply crowd noises that don't really rely on position to be immersing. Would I prefer 5.1? Of course, but I'm not gonna throw a fit about CS on one station. Hopefully, ESPN will begin to convert over to DD 5.1 as per the ATSC standard, especially given their new studio, capabilities, etc.
