Rout Material
When the contest is over but the game plays on, sports broadcasters once in a while still practice the art of trying to hold the audience.
Hello friends…
And please stay tuned.
Today isn’t yesterday, and lots of old rules for sports broadcasting no longer apply. The thing is - the evolution to how people consume sports these days makes the job super different than what it used to be. You don’t need us as much, the sports broadcasters who used to be relied on for every single piece of information the viewer or listener would hear.
When I was young and coming up all those years ago, well, it wasn’t as it is now. We had a handful of television stations to watch. No ESPN. No internet. No social media. Information was scant, even for those of us in the business who relied on information to call games.
When you watched a game or a live sporting event in the 1970’s or early 1980’s, there wasn’t a fixed graphic scoreboard on the screen, no down and distance, no first and ten line, no power play clock, no shot clock, no tiny diamond marked with baserunners.
You had the game, or the match, or the meet, or the tournament - but no running scoreboard or other information on the screen.
And you had the sportscaster, on TV and/or on the radio. And it was our job to give you everything. The score. The time. The players. The situation. The standings. The implications.
We had to do all of it, and keep doing it because you tuned in and out. “Resets” - the brief retelling of where we’re at and how we got there and what’s left to do - was our stock in trade.
We knew you were tuning in sporadically to maybe catch the score, or an update, and so we called games with that in mind. Radio still does this - even though - with scores available at the touch of a button or a prompt from a voice we can get em anyway.
And in those grand old days, we also wanted to keep you around in blowouts - in routs. We worked for ways to engage and entertain you - to - “hold the audience” regardless of the score.
That’s not a thing anymore. Not for us - sportscasters. Not really. Doesn’t matter how good you are holding em - too many other things now to pull them away. If you stay - you’re staying because you have a betting interest, or it’s your team and you watch the whole thing no matter what - or - there’s something else.
But it’s not up to us anymore. Sometimes, back then, we were better than others. Some personalities and shows got this - and others didn’t.
And watching the PGA championship yesterday, at the end, when the tournament was won but more contest remained, Jim Nantz dusted off his best polyester leisure suit, put his finger up to his ear, held the mic with the other hand, and did the damned thing the way we all used to do it.
And it was… well… I’ll tell ya.
