Monday Night Now With More Football » Brats & Beer

August 29, 2008
posted under: ESPN, Monday Night Football

Waka waka! Ain’t I funny?

Bob Wolfley, who is hit and miss with the Journal Sentinel sports media coverage, nailed it in his Thursday piece on changes ESPN is making to Monday Night Football for this season. The WWL during the off-season held focus groups to find out what people want to see during the weekly primetime game broadcast, and the answer was pretty astounding: football fans want to see a football game. Not celebrity interviews, not a plug for the latest Disney movie, but a competition between two football teams. Imagine that. Wolfley chimes in, “it’s a shame you have to get permission from a focus group to go ahead and call a football game.”

Unfortunately the ESPN suits have interpreted their data to mean viewers want more yakety yak from Ron Jaworski rather than less, but maybe this is a sign we’re starting to move in the right direction. Perhaps in our lifetime we’ll be able to watch a game with a play-by-play man doing play-by-play and a color man adding just a little color and analysis, allowing us to watch the action on the field rather than trying to entertain us with banal talky talk.

A world without Tony Kornheiser in the booth. Imagine it if you can.