SportsGirl

Since last night’s meeting between the Falcons and Giants was somewhat of a bust in terms of viewing pleasure, I wanted to comment on the broadcast team that ESPN selected for this season. You know Mike Tirico has got to be thinking “As hard as it is to admit, Joe Theismann was not the problem last year, Kornheiser was! Who knew?!” Because Mike Tirico is a consummate professional in my opinion. He is a great play-by-play guy who can deftly move from the play on the field, to mixing it up with the color guys, then back to the play on the field. Ron Jaworski makes a good color guy, and really is able to bring his knowledge from his playing days in without sounding like a stereotypical meathead former jock. But then you throw Tony Kornheiser in the mix and the formula develops a bad taste.

I understand that above anything else, Monday Night Football is a broadcast program competing against the likes of the Bachelor and The Big Bang Theory, which is one of the main reasons it was pulled from ABC’s line up and moved to ESPN, where you get more slack for lower ratings. Because of the pressure to keep a large market share, so as to continue to merit the high dollars that advertisers pay, ESPN wants to find lightening in a bottle in the broadcast booth. But I think they’re trying too hard.

Everyone said at the beginning of last season that Tony Kornheiser would be the “Howard Cosell” of the team. He would bring a unique, not always sports-themed, perspective that would liven up the perceived monotony of simple play-by-play and color exchanges. But they’re trying to force a dynamic that isn’t working. And to be fair, they also did this when the telecast was still on network television by thinking that Dennis Miller could be that “catalyst” for thought-provoking discussions. And that might be accurate, except when I’m watching football, I don’t want to listen to a thought-provoking discussion about anything other than whether or not someone was smart for drafting Adrian Peterson in the first round of their fantasy football league. I don’t want to hear someone slam President Bush. I don’t care about some obscure movie reference that they find particularly appropriate for that moment of the game. I want to hear about football. I think the Al Michael’s/John Madden tandem works well in this respect. They’re lively together and I think Michael’s is the best in the business. They play off of each other’s moods well and they keep it interesting. They also keep the discussion centered on football and pretty much nothing else, save for the few promos they have to kick out during the broadcast. Imagine if you threw Jon Stewart into the booth with them. I like Jon Stewart, but how is he relevant to football?

Last night, as with all broadcasts, the MNF crew brought a guest into the booth to provide more unnecessary commentary on all things non-football related. Their guest was Jimmy Kimmel. Kimmel is great on his talk show. Absolutely horrible in the booth. The guys were stepping all over each other vying for air time and meanwhile Tirico was desperately trying to recount what was going on down on the field. Not that there was much, the game was fairly difficult to watch. Sloppy performances on defense and offence from the Dirty Birds and the G-Men weren’t much better. It’s pretty sad when Joey Harrington throws fewer picks than Little Manning and yet Little Manning’s team still wins. But still, I didn’t want to listen to Kimmel detail his flight patterns as he juggles two gigs this week,  hosting both Regis and Kelly and his own show. If I’m watching the game, I want to know things like when Amani Toomer becomes the all-time leading receiver for the Giants. Give me insight on that. Talk about how you think Tiki Barber will react to being replaced. (On that subject, check out this articlefrom Gregg Easterbrook on the subject of records being broken)

So, my advice to the producers and the suits at ESPN? Kick Kornheiser off the broadcast and leave it to Jaws and Tirico. Seriously, test this out. Next week just tell the audience that Kornheiser got sick shortly after taping PTI that day and let’s see the reaction to the broadcast that night. Since something like that might take a week to get spread by word-of-mouth, repeat the experiment the following week and see what it does for ratings. Or float the story the night before that he’ll be out of the booth. Guaranty it will increase viewership, even for a crappy game. Just don’t make me listen to another season of “insight” from Big Tony that just fails to pique my interest.