extreme sportscasting
July 20, 2005
I don’t know how stuff like this slips by me. It was on ESPN and some other news. A skateboarder named Danny Way made a jump over the Great Wall of China on July 9. After searching for a minute, the video of the event was easy to find. Danny’s website shows all five jumps, and fortunately each one of them is from a slightly different camera angle so you get enough to really see the sheer mass of this ramp.
I know this event was covered by ESPN but I wonder if it was shown live. I’m thinking probably not because, well frankly it’s not in America and it’s not football or sports talk, so it probably didn’t even make it on the 4am segment. This leads me to what I hate about American TV and sports in general (major commercial sports). All the cool stuff is ignored and replaced by uselessness banter. You get ten seconds of the actual play and then 15 minutes of people’s bullshit about it. They talk about it beforehand, then they don’t shut up during the event. Then afterwards all of the people wearing ties with their shirtsleeves rolled up want to talk to each other some more about it. In the million of interviews I’ve seen with athletes after a game for “press conferences” I have never seen anything valuable said. Things like “We had a goal and we worked hard out there.” Wow, that’s realistic. Why not show me the coach busting somebody’s balls in the locker room for totally blowing that play.
Dear ESPN (CC all local news channels), I’m really tired of two things. 1. You are not the goddamn radio. You are TV. How dumb must your viewers be to you that you must talk us through everything. If I took my wife and a friend to a game and the entire time my friend sat there and talked in my ear, telling me what I was seeing, guess who is losing a testicle that day? Answer me this question ESPN. If you go out and buy a DVD and put it in your player to watch a movie, is the commentary on or off by default? And why is that do you think?
2. The only thing worse than men sportscasting is women. In fact, the more knowledgeable the women is at her banter the more stupid she sounds. Because no matter what degree she has, no matter how clear, cute or funny her voice is, she has absolutely no relation to the five black guys on the court. To talk about their feelings, their political moves within the organization, their strategy, wouldn’t it help if this 5′2″ woman was actually one of them?
And before you start getting pissed off, this is not about rights, equality or anything that degrades another person. This is about the consistency of a moment. Sports is a moment in time for people. People in this country schedule their lives around it. People beat their kids for it. People alter their brain chemistry and damage their livers for it. I’d say that’s an important moment for people. The moment requires preparation. You must set up the environment, get appropriate supplies. In fact, to enjoy these moment, billions are spent each year. Stadiums, AM radios, flags, TVs, jerseys, the money is sucked away.
So when you have a moment like this, it’s like you are at a movie theater. The environment darkens around you the screen lights up, you are pulled into this world. You are part of the moment of the event. Then what happens? A baby starts crying, burning popcorn sets off the smoke alarm, telemarketers ring your phone, anything that can take you out of the moment will occur.
This is what a women sportscaster does, she takes you out of the moment. Most television sports are mens sports. Disagree? Football, baseball, soccer, hockey, Nascar, golf. Should I go on? One fine day somebody put a women in the box with the microphone thinking she’d do a fine job talking, narrating, giving her opinion, bantering. I don’t care that she played in college. I don’t care if she has some cute story about going to games with her dad.
The need for a commentator to help us watch the action is difficult to swallow anyway, but I’ll forgive this because frankly TV is a small viewing medium for the expanse of a sporting event. I’ll forgive the man who must tell me about the necessary details of this game. But I want this man to sound like the game, to seamlessly fit in the moment. He should be a former player, a coach, former coach, players father. Someone who has something to do with it. Basically it shouldn’t be this guy.
Just like I wouldn’t expect to turn on NASCAR and expect the commentator to be black. (unfortunately, but true) I also wouldn’t expect him to speak with a Russian, British or German accent either. They aren’t part of the sport, nor of the moment. I don’t watch a training video and expect a five year old to describe the process of lithographic printing to me. It doesn’t fit the character. My expectations require certain things to maintain the moment, so why are ESPN and other broadcasters inserting things that break the moment? I don’t even love sports like other people but I think this is still just plain stupid.
Now on the other hand, if I’m watching Women’s sports. Swimming, diving, basketball or anything else, the broadcaster better be a woman. If not, they are breaking the fourth wall. It’s 2:40, time for bed.
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