A few New Year’s resolutions for sports broadcasting in 2010
Eric Deggans |
Jan. 5, 2010 8:01 a.m.
For a bunch of people who were held hostage just days ago, sports fans sure savored a lot of great television action this past weekend.
Perhaps the sight of University of Florida quarterback Tim Tebow and his Gators demolishing the Cincinnati Bearcats in a 51-24 rout at the Sugar Bowl Friday was enough to wash away the pain of how 6-million fans with Time Warner or Bright House cable systems almost didn’t get to see it.
But the down-to-the-wire conflict between Time Warner/Bright House and Fox TV over fees the cable systems pay for the network’s signals mostly became an ugly, national near-outrage right now because of one thing.
Sports fans and their growing appetite for watching the stuff on television.
Do you think U.S. Sen. John Kerry would have been threatening to sic the FCC on Fox if they were threatening to pull House reruns? Would two lawyers in Central Florida have filed a lawsuit to try and force the network to keep the Sugar Bowl on cable – and got a ruling on the day before New Year’s – if Fox owner News Corp. was only threatening to shutter the new season of So You Think You Can Dance?
Instead, the round-the-clock negotiations and last-minute agreement, announced about an hour before the Sugar Bowl kickoff, held the nation’s attention because Fox was broadcasting a flood of high-profile sports events over this past weekend — including the Cotton Bowl on Saturday and the NFL’s final regular-season games on Sunday.
Once again, fans’ love for their sports broadcasts became another tool for those who provide the show to squeeze another few nickels out of the system.
The passionate knuckleheads who just wanted to enjoy a landmark game found themselves stuck between the insistent demands of Fox for cash and the ardent resistance of Time Warner to set a precedent by providing said cash (hard to know why Time Warner was so adamant; according to The New York Times, the cable company instituted a fee hike for customers on the day its deal with Fox was hammered out).
I’ve said this many times about broadcasting; it is the only industry that values least the people who use it most.
Could you imagine walking into a restaurant you’ve patronized for 20 years and having the staff seat you in front of the kitchen so they can catch the attention of someone just walking by?
But that’s the way some broadcasters treat their most ardent fans. How else to explain the NFL’s hard-nosed stance about blacking out local broadcasts of games in cities where stadiums aren’t sold out, despite a worsening economy and rising at-home viewership?
According to USA Today, the NFL lodged 22 blackouts this year, more than twice the amount from last year. So instead of helping football fans squeezed by the economy out of pricey stadium seats, team owners and the league punished them for daring to try to save a little cash by watching some games at home.
If I had my way, that’s one New Year’s resolution sports broadcasters would be following right away: Treating fans like valued customers instead of commodities with high definition TVs and premium sports packages.
Here’s a few more resolutions I hope sports broadcasters adopt for 2010:
1) Address your own conflicts quicker – Why did it take a week for a CBS Sports anchor to finally ask CBS Sports analyst Bill Cowher the question fans had been kicking around for days: Will he take a head coaching job in Buffalo or Tampa Bay?
This is stuff that comes with the territory when you hire retired coaches as analysts; eventually a job will open up that they seem well-positioned to take. So why are so many broadcasters so bad at playing this game, letting rivals dissect the rumors while pretending nothing’s amiss on their own shows? (Cowher’s refusal to specifically address any rumors Sunday, amid reports of a secret meeting with Buffalo Bills management, only made the situation more awkward).
Nobody stumbles during this dance like ESPN, which took criticism earlier this year for delaying coverage of a civil lawsuit accusing Pittsburgh Steelers star Ben Roethlisberger of sexual assault; later, analyst Steve Phillips’ extramarital affair exploded into a scandal which cost him his job.
Now the worldwide sports leader is taking heat for allowing analyst Craig James to broadcast coverage of Texas Tech football games while his son Andy played on the team – a conflict that exploded into scandal when coach Mike Leach was fired and it was revealed Craig James had complained to school officials about his son’s treatment.
So far, the elder James was just removed from covering the Texas Tech’s appearance in the Alamo Bowl Saturday. But the company has much more explaining to do, starting with outlining the ethics guidelines that allowed James to call the games in the first place, let alone keep his job after interceding on his son’s behalf.
2) Outsource the sleazy sports gossip coverage to TMZSports.com – Now that plans have surfaced for celebrity news site TMZ to create its own sports site, perhaps more traditional sports journalists can use the Web site as a stalking horse of sorts – a way to keep an eye on athletes’ seamier sides without stepping into the muck too far themselves.
For example, nobody wants to cover every possible dalliance by married pros, but I bet there’s more than a few sports writers who would love to take back some overly complimentary Tiger Woods stories, now that his secret philandering has exploded into the mainstream.
If nothing else, the next time the National Enquirer breaks a scandal about a sports star, I bet they get more attention – for better or worse.
3) Stop grousing that Tiger Woods needs to come clean – It’s hard to tell whether the mouthpieces who pepper every Woods story saying he could stop the scandal by baring all publicly are just misguided or blinded by their thirst for new, salacious detail.
But it seems obvious now, as the golf star’s endorsements, marriage and public standing have come crashing down around him, that he is not going to make the trip to Oprah’s couch anytime soon – possibly because the full reality of his behavior isn’t known yet (a sports agent friend of mine said early on, mea culpas only work if you’re willing to admit everything).
Considering all he has endured so far, Woods may blaze another trail – demonstrating how a widely-admired sports figure gets his mojo back without playing the weeping penitent on Oprah or The View.
4) Keep sports journalism from becoming a war between three gigantic corporations – The worst part about the demise of the Washington Times sports department, besides seeing more journalists lose jobs, is the sense that one more individual voice in sports journalism has been stilled.
Already, ESPN’s localized Web sites in Chicago, Dallas and Boston feel like thinly-veiled attempts to take on the strongest voice in sports journalism outside their sway – local newspaper sports sections.
As Fox amasses its network of regional sports channels and Comcast decides whether to unite all the sports outlets at its disposal after its purchase of NBC (including Versus, The Golf Channel, G4 and NBC Sports programming), fans of great sports journalism are left to wonder how much room will be left for any other voices?
Much as I dig some sports blogs, they aren’t nearly enough. Here’s hoping 2010 brings stronger competition from all areas of sports journalism, if only to keep everyone’s conflicts, compromises and shortcomings from warping coverage too much.
Eric Deggans is TV and Media Critic for the St. Petersburg Times and a 1990 graduate of the Indiana University School of Journalism. His work has also appeared in the Washington Post, Village Voice, VIBE magazine, Chicago Tribune, Detroit Free Press, Chicago Sun-Times and many other publications. He also writes a blog on media, The Feed, at blogs.tampabay.com/media.
Perhaps the sight of University of Florida quarterback Tim Tebow and his Gators demolishing the Cincinnati Bearcats in a 51-24 rout at the Sugar Bowl Friday was enough to wash away the pain of how 6-million fans with Time Warner or Bright House cable systems almost didn’t get to see it.
But the down-to-the-wire conflict between Time Warner/Bright House and Fox TV over fees the cable systems pay for the network’s signals mostly became an ugly, national near-outrage right now because of one thing.
Sports fans and their growing appetite for watching the stuff on television.
Do you think U.S. Sen. John Kerry would have been threatening to sic the FCC on Fox if they were threatening to pull House reruns? Would two lawyers in Central Florida have filed a lawsuit to try and force the network to keep the Sugar Bowl on cable – and got a ruling on the day before New Year’s – if Fox owner News Corp. was only threatening to shutter the new season of So You Think You Can Dance?
Instead, the round-the-clock negotiations and last-minute agreement, announced about an hour before the Sugar Bowl kickoff, held the nation’s attention because Fox was broadcasting a flood of high-profile sports events over this past weekend — including the Cotton Bowl on Saturday and the NFL’s final regular-season games on Sunday.
Once again, fans’ love for their sports broadcasts became another tool for those who provide the show to squeeze another few nickels out of the system.
The passionate knuckleheads who just wanted to enjoy a landmark game found themselves stuck between the insistent demands of Fox for cash and the ardent resistance of Time Warner to set a precedent by providing said cash (hard to know why Time Warner was so adamant; according to The New York Times, the cable company instituted a fee hike for customers on the day its deal with Fox was hammered out).
I’ve said this many times about broadcasting; it is the only industry that values least the people who use it most.
Could you imagine walking into a restaurant you’ve patronized for 20 years and having the staff seat you in front of the kitchen so they can catch the attention of someone just walking by?
But that’s the way some broadcasters treat their most ardent fans. How else to explain the NFL’s hard-nosed stance about blacking out local broadcasts of games in cities where stadiums aren’t sold out, despite a worsening economy and rising at-home viewership?
According to USA Today, the NFL lodged 22 blackouts this year, more than twice the amount from last year. So instead of helping football fans squeezed by the economy out of pricey stadium seats, team owners and the league punished them for daring to try to save a little cash by watching some games at home.
If I had my way, that’s one New Year’s resolution sports broadcasters would be following right away: Treating fans like valued customers instead of commodities with high definition TVs and premium sports packages.
Here’s a few more resolutions I hope sports broadcasters adopt for 2010:
1) Address your own conflicts quicker – Why did it take a week for a CBS Sports anchor to finally ask CBS Sports analyst Bill Cowher the question fans had been kicking around for days: Will he take a head coaching job in Buffalo or Tampa Bay?
This is stuff that comes with the territory when you hire retired coaches as analysts; eventually a job will open up that they seem well-positioned to take. So why are so many broadcasters so bad at playing this game, letting rivals dissect the rumors while pretending nothing’s amiss on their own shows? (Cowher’s refusal to specifically address any rumors Sunday, amid reports of a secret meeting with Buffalo Bills management, only made the situation more awkward).
Nobody stumbles during this dance like ESPN, which took criticism earlier this year for delaying coverage of a civil lawsuit accusing Pittsburgh Steelers star Ben Roethlisberger of sexual assault; later, analyst Steve Phillips’ extramarital affair exploded into a scandal which cost him his job.
Now the worldwide sports leader is taking heat for allowing analyst Craig James to broadcast coverage of Texas Tech football games while his son Andy played on the team – a conflict that exploded into scandal when coach Mike Leach was fired and it was revealed Craig James had complained to school officials about his son’s treatment.
So far, the elder James was just removed from covering the Texas Tech’s appearance in the Alamo Bowl Saturday. But the company has much more explaining to do, starting with outlining the ethics guidelines that allowed James to call the games in the first place, let alone keep his job after interceding on his son’s behalf.
2) Outsource the sleazy sports gossip coverage to TMZSports.com – Now that plans have surfaced for celebrity news site TMZ to create its own sports site, perhaps more traditional sports journalists can use the Web site as a stalking horse of sorts – a way to keep an eye on athletes’ seamier sides without stepping into the muck too far themselves.
For example, nobody wants to cover every possible dalliance by married pros, but I bet there’s more than a few sports writers who would love to take back some overly complimentary Tiger Woods stories, now that his secret philandering has exploded into the mainstream.
If nothing else, the next time the National Enquirer breaks a scandal about a sports star, I bet they get more attention – for better or worse.
3) Stop grousing that Tiger Woods needs to come clean – It’s hard to tell whether the mouthpieces who pepper every Woods story saying he could stop the scandal by baring all publicly are just misguided or blinded by their thirst for new, salacious detail.
But it seems obvious now, as the golf star’s endorsements, marriage and public standing have come crashing down around him, that he is not going to make the trip to Oprah’s couch anytime soon – possibly because the full reality of his behavior isn’t known yet (a sports agent friend of mine said early on, mea culpas only work if you’re willing to admit everything).
Considering all he has endured so far, Woods may blaze another trail – demonstrating how a widely-admired sports figure gets his mojo back without playing the weeping penitent on Oprah or The View.
4) Keep sports journalism from becoming a war between three gigantic corporations – The worst part about the demise of the Washington Times sports department, besides seeing more journalists lose jobs, is the sense that one more individual voice in sports journalism has been stilled.
Already, ESPN’s localized Web sites in Chicago, Dallas and Boston feel like thinly-veiled attempts to take on the strongest voice in sports journalism outside their sway – local newspaper sports sections.
As Fox amasses its network of regional sports channels and Comcast decides whether to unite all the sports outlets at its disposal after its purchase of NBC (including Versus, The Golf Channel, G4 and NBC Sports programming), fans of great sports journalism are left to wonder how much room will be left for any other voices?
Much as I dig some sports blogs, they aren’t nearly enough. Here’s hoping 2010 brings stronger competition from all areas of sports journalism, if only to keep everyone’s conflicts, compromises and shortcomings from warping coverage too much.
Eric Deggans is TV and Media Critic for the St. Petersburg Times and a 1990 graduate of the Indiana University School of Journalism. His work has also appeared in the Washington Post, Village Voice, VIBE magazine, Chicago Tribune, Detroit Free Press, Chicago Sun-Times and many other publications. He also writes a blog on media, The Feed, at blogs.tampabay.com/media.
