Whatever became of serious, intelligent sports broadcast journalism? The 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney is in full swing, and Bob Costas is manning the NBC anchor desk as we confront a new sports dilemma: intentionally calculated dramatic overkill.
With his newly dyed ginger hair and stiff sports geek delivery, Costas seems to be struggling with NBC’s saccharine approach to the material. A well-respected broadcaster for a wide array of sports events (not to mention a successful author and ex-host of the engrossing “Later” show), Costas is known and revered in the industry for his insightful commentary and encyclopedic knowledge of sports figures and trivia.
But instead of the smart, intelligent approach we’ve come to know and respect from him, Costas has been delivering pat, bland and downright insipid dialogue between events and carefully executed “sports champion” stories.
Granted, much of the verbiage Costas is required to deliver is pre-scripted by unseen NBC writers. We’re forced to endure Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade-like commentary of the obvious over endless events such as the opening night ceremonies and the men’s and women’s triathlon. Do we really need to know what a competitor’s favorite color is and which deodorant he uses?
Even worse, interspersed with every event are overbaked, grand-scale backstories on the local heroes who comprise each international team. Crammed with gel-filtered sunset shots and Spielbergian camera moves, way too much time is spent squeezing every dramatic ounce out of their mundane stories. Our once ancient games are now saturated with the aforementioned intentionally calculated dramatic overkill.
Plus, with so many quick cuts to commercials, we’re being cheated out of seeing most of the sports events themselves. And how many times does NBC need to interrupt a game to hawk their Olympic Web site?
Howard Cosell is turning in his grave.
As might be expected, NBC’s coverage is delivering the worst ratings for an Olympics in decades, the lowest Nielsens since the 1968 summer games in Mexico City. Although the opening ceremonies drew a sampling of 27 million viewers and easily won last Friday night, the numbers have been steadily sliding. The Peacock Network is winning the battles but losing the war.
With these mini-soap operas, Costas‘ groan-inducing commentary and the multi-billion-dollar saturation of commercial endorsements every four minutes, it’s no wonder everyone is turning off their TV sets, avoiding “Survivor” reruns and discovering the virtues of a good book and a walk through the leaves.
