I personally have nothing against the guy. I’m not a fan or anything, but I don’t get the hate. Apparently, I am alone. Practically any time I’ve ever heard his name mentioned it’s for people to bust on him. This includes the guy at the bar last night sitting next to me watching the game as well as the OP (and a plurality of the posters) in the thread above. I’ve never really heard specific complaints, though, like one will about Joe Morgan or somebody. So, haters, have at it. Why has Brent so egregiously earned your wrath?
He annoyed me last night when he took it upon himself to dedicate the game to the people of Tuscaloosa (remembering last spring’s tornadoes). It’s not his place as an announcer to dedicate the game to anyone.
Mostly he annoys me for stating the obvious, and because like so many announcers, he’ll see one good play and extrapolate that one team or the other has turned the game around.
I don’t mind him, and he can be fun sometimes. I often ignore what any announcer is saying, and as I said in the other thread, I dislike Tirico more. At least we didn’t hear anything about, “This one’s for all the Allstate coverage, folks…”
Eh, I’d rather listen to him than, say, Joe Buck. On the other hand, I’d rather listen to elevator music than most play-by-play announcers, so there you go.
This was the only really egregious thing last night, although the endless “Honey Badger” calls were annoying. It’s like he latched on to something and wouldn’t let it go, but that’s not unusual for announcers.
He’s not nearly as good as he once was, he’s not even remotely the worst announcer in the sports world, and I can take him or leave him. They can’t all be Keith Jackson.
Well, he suggested that Saban had surpassed Bear Bryant in the hearts of Alabama fans, but quickly retracted it. One does not blaspheme against the Bear.
After the fifth “Honey Badger” reference (about five minutes into the first quarter) I switched to the Nuggets game and never went back. Sure didn’t miss anything.
I found the Honey Badger thing very annoying the first time around. Hearing it over and over and over again from Brent Musberger last night made it a lot worse.
I don’t know that he does this any more, but a while back, he drove me nuts focusing on whether a team got a first down. As in, a first down play, the player runs 8 or 9 yards, and his comment is “short of a first down.” WTF? How about talking about the 8 or 9 yards the play achieved? About how it’s now short yardage and two plays to get it? “Short of a first down.”
And you generally won’t, because with Musberger, it’s not what he says (well, not usually; except for “all the Tostitos”) but how he says it. Every game he announces is the Game of the Century–it must be, or else he wouldn’t be there–but he’s so cool that he and he alone can maintain an air of ironic detachment amidst his own hype. He’s the douche at the bar whose wife, mistress, job, and car are all better than yours, because he’s cool and you’re not.
And every time he addresses me as “folks” I want to gouge his eyes out.
His hyperbole is WAY over the TOP. I think he has the personality of a doorknob. He seldom says anything insightful. And his voice drones on like Ben Stein.
There’s nothing I can put my finger on that’s uniquely bad about Musberger. Stating the obvious over and over: see John Madden. Thinking he’s saying something clever that ain’t: he doesn’t hold a candle to Bud Collins. And he can’t even come close to the asshattery of Howard Cosell (who, for some perverse reason I kind of liked).
That said, he covers all the bases of mediocrity, and has about the same effect on me as nails on a chalkboard.