Epitomization of football-watching

[Joel S. Berson]

At 10/20/2011 09:53 AM, Laurence Horn wrote:
>On Oct 20, 2011, at 12:04 AM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
> > ... Ms. Stanley perhaps needs to attend a Sports 101 semester (as well as
> > Creative Writing 153, "Overuse of Alliteration").  Later in her
> > article she writes that "The introduction to the Las Vegas debate --
> > with music, mountains, majesty and a montage of gambling images --
> > was a cheesy blend of Caesars* Palace and 'Sunday Night Football.'"
> >
> > Surely the epitome of male sports-watching excess is "Monday
> Night Football."
> >
> > Joel
> >
>Well, technically, a case can be made for Sunday Night Football,
>since the great switch a few years ago when NBC bought the rights to
>Sunday Night Football (which now gets all the good games, or the
>ones predicted to be good) while ABC's longterm association with
>Monday Night Football was allowed to lapse.  And the primary A team
>announcer Al Michaels came over from ABC's MNF to NBC's SNF.  Monday
>Night Football is no longer broadcast (except locally to the two
>markets involved, on non-network stations), but rather delivered on
>cable to ESPN subscribers, as Sunday Night Football used to be.*  I
>don't know the figures, but I'd wager that the ratings are much
>higher for SNF than for MNF, especially since the games are usually
>much better, and it's preceded by an hour pregame show called
>"Football Night in America", a clear borrowing from (or ripoff of)
>"Hockey Night in Canada".  Whether the epitomization of male sports
>watching excess also shifted I can't say.
>
>LH
>
>*Actually, in the old days the second-tier Sunday night schedule
>used to split between ESPN and TNT.

OK, I relied too much on historical memory.  And the defection of Al
Michaels is probably the clincher as to where the epitomization now
lies on the couch.

Joel

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