When they have the sidebars, I always override them with my own set's gray bars, as my set's gray bars are less likely to cause screen burn-in on my CRT-RP than the ESPN bars.
Therefore the ESPN bars are worthless and meaningless to me, whatever they set them to be.
They should change them every commercial break or something to prevent burn-in. Or I guess you could watch it on the SD channel or hit the aspect button.