Men in Tights Fight for Ratings

Detroit, June 26

I was happy to hear that Dennis Miller beat out Rush Limbaugh for the third chair in ABC's Monday Night Football booth.

I, myself, only rarely listen to Rush Limbaugh. His message repulses me, and his self-righteous rants seem to defy logic. Of course, I am what Limbaugh refers to as a "commie-lib" and find myself gladly outside his audience.

However, I often watch Monday Night Football. I am a football fan and enjoy the sight of 300 pound dudes beating the crap out of each other for three or four hours on a Monday night. I don't know if I'd be able to stomach listening to Limbaugh try to dissect a play. I can already hear the political puns about sweeping around the left end or blitzing from the right.

The choice of Dennis Miller soothed my misgivings about Monday Night Football. Miller is more of a libertarian, which is a different set of issues, but his act is that of a smartass, not a political pundit.

I don't believe that football broadcasts are pure, and I think that Miller is an interesting choice. I enjoy his HBO show and loved him on Saturday Night Live. But Miller's hiring and Limbaugh's audition beg another question: what has happened to the National Football League?

Suddenly, football games are not interesting enough to draw young male viewers from wrestling on cable to watch games on Monday night. I understand ABC's panic--they paid a lot of money to televise these games, but apparently a football game is not enough to draw an audience.

Despite what I may think of this, I understand it. For me, football is still the most viscerally appealing sport.

The violence and speed of the game is irresistible. Even on the Ivy League level, the games are inaccessible enough to make them compelling. Plus, sport is sport and will appeal to a certain segment of the population, no matter who is talking behind the pictures.

But I also see why wrestling is more exciting than football sometimes. I mean, sportscasters make up storylines for NFL games, but the games don't necessarily play them out. In the case of wrestling, writers script the storylines, and the shows only further them. Plus there is much less race-baiting in the NFL.

I don't want to say that wrestling appeals to the lowest common denominator, because I don't believe that. Wrestling, like real sports, is about entertainment. But in the WWF and WCW, the real competition is gone. It is only entertainment, and there is nothing wrong with that. Wrestling is fun because it doesn't put forth any pretensions. It is not subtle or high brow. It is violent and has tons of flashing lights and scantily-clad women.

And wrestling knows how to capitalize on adrenaline. The pace is made to order for television.

When you have to fit five commercial breaks into each quarter, it's hard to keep a football game going. Plus, since the game is real, the players need to catch their breath, the coaches need time to relay plays, and the analysts need to explain what happened on the last play to us.

Miller is only in the booth to provoke discussion in offices and on sports-talk radio. But what is he going to do in the booth besides ridicule and insult the players and officials? In his first blowout, is he going to do schtick? Miller's best comedy is heavily scripted.

Press boxes are cynical places, but broadcast booths should emanate a mix of excitement about the game with knowledge about why things happen on a football game.

Miller is a self-professed football junkie, and if he loves the game that could come through on television.

He will be learning like the rest of us, listening to Fouts to break down the game, but he will have to take the game a little bit seriously to appeal to the blue-collar crowd, especially for fans of the teams playing.