My take: it wasn't just ESPN; it was an organic response....
Wilbon said today on PTI, the level of response surprised him. I felt the same. I woke up and learned of it from a notification on my phone. And I didn't have a visceral response. But I thought about it that morning. I thought about how many hours I spent watching morning SportsCenters as kid anchored by him, and I wanted to respond. So I posted something on Facebook. I responded to RF's thread here. And evidently a ton of people did the same thing.
So that's how the level of response was surprising, but then not. Because while he didn't have a singular act of greatness or notoriety, he was just a fundamental piece of cable sports media, that has now morphed to a digital, Internet-driven media, and he was that for sports fans in about a twenty-year age range.
Example: Kobe Bryant's old as balls as pro athlete right, but he can remember back to when no one knew his name and he was watching Stuart Scott on SportsCenter, then he can remember the first time Scott did a highlight package of him on SportCenter, and then him interviewing him during multiple NBA finals. That's perspective on the swath of the audience he built.
Now add to that the cultural impact he had on sports broadcasting as well as fighting 3 separate bouts of cancer, which IDGAF if you're a multi-millionaire or a bum whose waisted life's opportunities, that is commendable to go through that challenge, and I think you get the response.
I bitch about a lot of E!SPN's shortcomings, but I don't see anything wrong with the way they covered this. Mike Hall, on BTN before the IU game, worked briefly for ESPN (I think he won their short-lived anchor competition) and, with red eyes glassy from welling-up tears, eulogized Scott. So I think this feels very germane from a lot of people.