Kornheiser Was Fine, But ESPN’s Graphic Has To Go
ESPN’s new Monday Night Football crew of Mike Tirico, Joe Theismann and Tony Kornheiser debuted last night, with all eyes obviously on the Pardon The Interruption host making his NFL analyst debut.
The early returns on Kornheiser weren’t terrible for his rookie outing.On the plus side, he didn’t try to analyze the football and often tried to bait Theismann into some light arguments. It looks like his role will be to throw out snarky one-liners when he can, and without the awkwardness of what Dennis Miller tried to do – making sure he could jam in the 273 pre-written stand-up lines he had ready for every game. I get all ticked off again just thinking about how bad he was.
But Kornheiser needs to be careful not to jump on the obvious too often, as he is in this role because he is known for bypassing the low-hanging fruit for something a little smarter, and a little funnier.
His presence was fine in a pre-season yawner, but it remains to be seen how he will fit in when the regular season game begins, especially in the fourth quarter of a big game.But Kornheiser has a lot of goodwill with sports fans, so he will be given time to grow.
But the big fumble for ESPN was their decision to place the time and score bug directly centered on the screen about 1/5 of the way from the bottom.It is a disaster.You have players going in motion and disappearing behind it, and it is simply an eyesore.
I detest having the time and score on the screen at all during the run of play (between plays is fine), I want to see the damned game.Whether it’s in the upper corner or across the top, I can’t believe networks are still doing it…and ESPN’s bug wasn’t even sponsored.
But ESPN wins the award for the most awful placement I have ever seen.Honestly, when it first came up I thought they had made a technical mistake.Turns out it was a strategic one.
Fix it, ESPN.If you can afford over a billion dollars a year for these games, I’m sure you have a few scheckels around to go back to the drawing board on this one.Do it, now.
–By Ben Grossman
jack commented:
The bug stinks - just like Tony's show. If they're gonna have it on screen, they should do it properly like Fox or NBC and place it at the top or bottom. Not a big, black Tylenol smack dab in the middle of my viewing area.
Ben Masters commented:
I actually like ESPN's MNF score bug-- the way the numbers flip over on a score, along with a flashing banner showing what kind of score it was and who scored it. I think it's just an attempt to look different.
Randy commented:
The score can only be described as "awful". The game is what we're watching. Either their designers aren't sports fans or they forgot what's important.
Tom commented:
Has anyone seen any positive feedback about the score? I haven't. I really hope they swallow their pride and move the thing. For being a sports company, a simple poll of employees could have avoided a major disaster. I doubt any real sports fan would like it. Only thing I can say I liked was that I could finally could make out the difference between a 3, 6 and 8 without having to get up and stand a foot away from the tv.
Joe commented:
I agree. The score placement was awful. Doing something for the sake of being different is no excuse. Too many sound effects. Felt like I was in an arcade. Tony's email song was okay the first time, but by the 9th time I was just begging for it to stop. Was surprised that Kornheiser appeared so uncomfortable infront of the camera. He's already on TV so why the akwardness?
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Barbaro commented:
Good luck with your Monday Night Fottball, ESPN!! Break a leg!
Barbaro commented:
I was wondering where your weather graphic was?
Mike commented:
I thought the insert graphics looked fantastic...nice job on all those animations!
Belcho commented:
I thought Kornheiser was great, if not a little stiff at first.
I actually liked the on-screen graphic. Very small, but it could have been a little lower on the screen.