Two’s company enough for telecasts
Three definitely a crowd in NFL booth
The verbose horrors of the three- man broadcast booth aren’t behind us yet. But the eradication of the worst crime against sports fans next to the glowing puck is definitely near. When all the NFL broadcasters have completed their season debuts Sunday night, only one will feature more than two people in the broadcast booth.
This is a good thing. Fox became the latest to follow the trend to sanity when it passed on replacing Cris Collinsworth after he headed to NBC. ABC abandoned its three’s-a-crowd commentary when it sent Dennis Miller packing three years ago. The only holdout is ESPN, but it too will go with a two- man team when it moves from Sunday to Monday nights next year.
At least two analysts like the trend, a lot. CBS analyst Phil Simms says the three- man booth’s time has passed.
“ The game is faster, it’s faster on TV,” he said in a conference call. “ There’s less time for us to talk.”
Fox’s Troy Aikman also prefers to work with fewer mouths.
“In a three-man booth the game really goes all over the place,” Aikman said in a conference call. “ One guy wants to talk about this play or this player, the other guy has his own idea of where he wants to go with it.” ESPN’s Joe Theismann, who will work one more season with Mike Patrick and Paul Maguire before moving to a two-man booth with Al Michaels next season, isn’t so sure.
“ I really don’t have a preference,” he said in a telephone interview. “ The three has been a lot of fun, but the two gives you a chance to develop the stories a little bit more yourself.”
In some cases, the preference for the two- man booth has nothing to do with the viewers. Simms talked about how working with only Jim Nantz is a lot like being a quarterback and getting to call your own plays. Aikman said he finds it easier.
Regardless of the reason, this is a trend we should applaud. The basic problem with the three- man booth is that there’s one more guy in it. One more mouth means more verbiage no matter how you look at it.
If one guy made a comment, the other analyst was usually driven by some primal urge to match it, even if it meant saying the same thing.
Theismann, who seldom uses one word when two will suffice, isn’t convinced the public has developed a distaste for the three- man chatfest. “These are executive decisions,” he says. “ Some of them maybe grew up with the twoman booth and they like the sound better and that it gives them a chance to do certain things better.
“I don’t think people grow tired of information, especially when it’s entertaining and fun.”
Ah, if only it were all information and fun. Then we could all enjoy three, four or even five guys in the booth. But since so much of it is just babble, two will do. HIGH ON OPEN:
For those who have it, TSN and CTV are offering the Canadian Open in high definition for the first time. . . . If you’re not satisfied with the regular TV coverage of the Open, Bell ExpressVu is again offering its multi- camera interactive feature. It includes five feeds, stats and much more. . . . ExpressVu has also added an interactive feature to its NFL Sunday Ticket package. ProGuide gives you the ability to be in touch with all NFL games, complete with instant alerts on scoring drives and updates. It’s an extra $5 a season. . . . TSN has named Jim Marshall as its executive producer, events, starting Dec. 1. Marshall will be responsible for TSN’s mobile productions. . . . If you clipped yesterday’s Leafs TV schedule, note that the Nov. 6 game in Washington has been changed to a 6 p. m. start. . . . The Score’s Steve Kouleas has replaced Paul Romanuk as host of Live From Wayne Gretzky’s, which makes its season debut tomorrow ( 4 p. m., FAN 590.) czelkov@thestar.ca