When I watch football, college or pro, I seldom turn off the dehumidifier so I can hear the play-by-play. I just watch the action, when I’m not being distracted by my iPad.
Football is more of a show than it’s ever been. Just give me the game and not the hour-plus pregame where there’s way too much contrived discussion and breathless analysis, including, now, over-and-unders and parlays? Holy shit.
The highlights are tantalizingly sporadic, and we don’t need the seizure-inducing graphics and dramatic theme music, the balls-to-the-wall intros. That’s the most over-the-top part of the whole thing.
I guess the reality is that it is a sporting event on networks with huge advertising revenue, so one is liable to get big productions, and commentators for whom football is life. Still, it’s just too much anymore.
CBS, Fox, NBC, ESPN/ABC—they all do the same thing. Four, five or six people taking turns offering their insights and opinions, with an occasional anchor who never played the game but stands or sits there in the role of cliched pretty face.
Don’t get me started on the sideline reporters, and that guy who dishes on the inside scoop. It’s Entertainment Tonight– NFL Edition.
Spoken like a true dinosaur. I’ll stop now.
3 Cents' 