Epitomization of football-watching

[Laurence Horn]

On Oct 20, 2011, at 10:15 AM, Joel S. Berson wrote:

> 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.
>
And perhaps even more so, the semi-defection of John Madden, who rather than making the switch from ABC to NBC put his Madden cruiser into drydock and retired from announcing (and presumably from turduckens).  But he's still producing his annual video games, so the couch-sitters can continue to epitomize away with Madden.  As it were.

LH

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