If TV networks weren’t proud of their profound ignorance and fiscal insanity, their offices wouldn’t be large and gaudy — instead they’d be more like broom closets.
But they almost have to exist. They’re the places telecasts now first arrive to begin the process of driving us somewhere between nuts and into the loving arms of reverse mortgage commercials.
There has to be a room where a Fox exec determines that the nation is wild about lead MLB analyst John Smoltz for his either untreated or indulged inability to, well, shut up. Such an exec can’t be a sports fan, unless he prefers to watch the playoffs and World Series with his sister-in-law.
Reader Damian Digulian: “Smoltz literally talks the entire game.”
Reader Joe Kane: “He complicates everything, taking us on a journey after every pitch.”
If only Smoltz, monotone and with a predilection to lecture about “spin rates” and “count leverage,” had these readers’ gifts for brevity. But how could Fox be so wrong for so long — 10 years — not knowing what it’s doing to such a significant national assignment?
It’s the same for Fox’s lead NFL analyst, Greg Olsen, who has not yet bumped into a play unworthy of a long, redundant story, plus the new requisite of turning short-term simple to long-form vague with an artificial intelligence dash of rehearsed-but-wasteful slick.
And with the Giants near an early end, the insufferable Mark Schlereth is warming in Fox’s, ahem, bullpen for mop-up assignments. Or Moose “The Non-Story Long” Johnston, who has been vandalizing Fox’s NFL telecasts but only since 2001.
Thus, in 50 years on this job I’d never before experienced a greater abandon of sense, swapped for the ridiculous, or calm and well-spoken speech for prefabricated noise and transparently shallow hollering in service to exciting morons — now TV’s primary targets.
And so, ‘“scrambling for a first down” has been lost to “extending the play to move the chains by reaching the line to gain.” Running off guard or tackle is now “running downhill” or “north and south.’’ The impossible “tackles in space” are referenced and, as Olson said Sunday, the Browns were “looking to avoid a negative loss.”
Oh, and play calling has been replaced by “Dialing up a play.”
But, as written on roadside maps, “You Are Here.”
Never before have I read and heard more mockery of sports TV from sports fans, but why should quality matter to TV execs now in the business of spending tens of millions to procure or maintain voices among those who’d also destroy telecasts, but for many millions less?
Before bumping condescending, post-play clairvoyant Cris Collinsworth from a ridiculous $4.5 million per to a preposterous $12.5 million per, did NBC bother to learn that he’s wildly unpopular, especially with viewers who know when they’re weekly being had?
Collinsworth wouldn’t have worked for less, as in much less? So let him walk and save $12.5 million by hiring an all-we-need-and-want, down-and-distance guy. It worked for Marty Glickman, Chris Schenkel, Jack Buck, Spencer Ross, Pat Summerall, Charlie Jones. They were cherished for it.
Did I mention that CBS pays Tony Romo $18 million per? I like him more than most readers do, but he’s not worth a dime over $17 million. And who wouldn’t watch ESPN’s “Monday Night Football” without Joe Buck and Troy Aikman, who are paid a total of $34 million annually?
Now, there’s the female-insulting tokenism inspired by the desire to hire women in order to provide shallow, on-camera gender diversity. Anyone will do, provided she’s at least partially boom-shack-a-lacka, even at immediate peril to both viewers and network. Thus, “What does this win mean for your program?” is considered expert questioning following any or every game.
To this conspicuously farcical end, ESPN, never more of a chore to engage, wins by the length of a multiple dialect Stephen A. Smith sermon on the importance of pompous, rotten guesswork passing as legit knowledge and well-reasoned opinion.
To have returned tried-and-failed MLB prime-time analyst Jessica Mendoza to this season’s playoffs was a betrayal of those viewers who, over a third replay of a home run, didn’t need to hear, “He got all of that one!”
And now there are the screamers, more transparent excitement fabricators who know not what or why they holler. Those scoring at home: from Kevin Harlan to Gus Johnson to now countless, indistinguishable professional clones and clowns.
But these are days that challenge us to remain seated while unbelted. Giancarlo Stanton, for $280 million, had the 10th highest Michael Kay Exit Velo in the bigs. He struck out in one-third of his at-bats, batted .191 and otherwise played as if he didn’t give a rodent’s rectum. And the mediocre Yankees raised ticket prices.
And while red-zone efficiency has become TV’s most essential stat, no one knows — no one — when, first down through fourth, it begins. It’s all a matter of planned parrothood.
You might recall that soccer’s latest World Cup, in 2022, was illogically and suspiciously rewarded (or sold) to Iran’s buddies in Qatar, leading to imported Third World workers being shipped home dead and included a session during which a slew of Iranian “media” were paraded before in the U.S. side to badger them about the sins of “racist” America.
Yes, the oppressive, women-damning Islamic Republic of Iran was suddenly self-smitten by its great regard for Western democracy.
And this month, as nations such as the United Kingdom, Germany, France and Sweden and easily suckered United States college students have been gamed by this garbage, the Middle East fever blister burst.
What escaped U.S. and Israeli intelligence agencies, soccer aficionados could see coming: Islam remains, as it has for centuries, murderously incompatible with Western democratic values. And its torch troops in the U.S., including elected females, are incomprehensibly allied with Arab theocracies that enslave women on orders from their God.
Yet the issue is debated here as if it’s an intellectual jump-ball.
In the meantime, anti-Semitic New Yorkers should prove the courage of their convictions by refusing free emergency treatment in Jewish family-endowed hospitals.
Sports media have never before been so detached from here-and-now reality in favor of rankings that change every Monday. Thus it was reported all week that Notre Dame’s 48-20 win over USC last Saturday was “a shocking upset.” Yep, Notre Dame winning at home is a rarity.
On the subject of significant context, Tony Kornheiser is the latest ESPNer to lose his. He blared that the Jets hadn’t beaten the Eagles in 55 years! But that has been a total of 13 games. Next stop: ESPN’s comically misleading Department of Stat Graphics.
So Coach Flim-Flam is blaming his chosen and paid transfers for Colorado’s latest loss. Heck Deion Sanders twice had “60 Minutes” believing he took his orders directly from God.