I’m watching the Sunday Night Game, between the Giants and Eagles, and some guy gets hurt on the field.
This guy is out of it for 20 minutes or so… laying on the field with a clear neck injury. The replays show that he was hit in the head, and there was concern of a serious neck injury.
So, after they wheel the poor bastard off, Al goes to his intrepid bimbo reporter (Andrea Kraemer, maybe? It doesn’t really matter.)
Al gives the lead in… “Here’s Andrea, with an update on Player X’s Injury. Andrea?” And she says “Player X has a neck injury! We’ll report any updates as they come available.”
Thanks! A neck injury? Wowl
Can anyone explain to me why they have these bimbos polluting the airwaves? They suck, and not in a good way.
It’s not the sideline reporter’s fault. It’s being asked the question. You wouldn’t expect them to say, “Who the fuck knows? I’m a reporter, not a doctor.”
My question is why the NFL is so reluctant to put a woman in the commentator’s booth. I guarantee that there are women out there who know as much, if not more, about football than men.
My only guess is that the NFL knows a large part of its audience is comprised of good ol’ boys who think the only role women should play in football is that of a cheerleader and the NFL is afraid of alienating that part of their audience.
Other than the NFL Network, the NFL has no input on who does the announcing on a broadcast. That’s up to the individual networks.
The first hurdle is that the networks use ex-players and coaches for color commentary. The feeling is that, as a player, they know the game better. This eliminates women.
There could be a woman doing play-by-play, but then you have the issue of finding a qualified woman to do that job – which is much more difficult than is seems. Are there any women play-by-play commentators in other sports?
So, while there is probably some sexism, the bigger issue is finding a woman who could do the job. (I wonder if in sports like tennis or beach volleyball, where women actually play, things are different).
Its not just female sideline reporters, male reporters are just as annoying. A couple of years ago CBS quietly stopped the practice, and it is ever more so pleasant to watch a game on that network.
When ABC/ESPN will get this memo is anybody’s guess. It saves money and detracts nothing from the broadcast. But of course then they wouldn’t have anybody in place for the most absurd of all reports - the coach interview on the way into the locker room at half time.
Even worse is that this practice has spread to all other sports. We really don’t need a guy behind the bench at a hockey game. “Johnson took a puck to the face and went straight to the dressing room, we will back with more later” WOW thanks for that. Just have somebody on the training staff call or text the broadcast booth when they know something.
Double post to add that ESPN has female play by play announcers for a lot of second tier college football games, and I think they average no better or worse than their male counterparts. At this point it is a matter of critical mass of females in the business and pushing through those who were already there.
But without halftime interviews, how would we know which team needs to execute better in the second half and which team needs to find its rhythm? We might think that Wisconsin needs to execute better while Minnesota needs to get in a rhythm, when in fact the reverse was the case. This cannot be risked.
I think Tony Saragusa does a good job as a sideline reporter for FOX but they rarely go to him with inane questions. Most of the time he talks as much as the color commentary guy but with a different perspective.
Sideline reporters are useless in general, never have any actual information to report and just parakeet the most insubstantial cliches from the coaches:
“I caught up with Andy Reid at halftime, and he says while he’s happy with the play of his quarterback, Michael Vick, his defense still needs to execute better on 3rd downs. They still have a whole half to play and it’s going take all 4 quarters to beat the Giants.”
But since the position is pointless anyway, you might as well have a bit of fluff to look at than Tony Siragusa.
Sherry Ross, who normally does the color commentary, has done the play-by-play for the WFAN radio feed of Devils games on at least one occasion. The Wikipedia entry does specify that she was the first woman to “provide English language play-by-play for a full NHL game,” suggesting that women have previously done PBP in other languages, but I don’t know of any full-time women PBP callers in any of the big four sports.
Tennis (mens and women’s) and women’s volleyball both regularly have female announcers, though neither sport really requires a “play-by-play” caller, per se.
Most sports played by women, like softball, gymnastics, women’s basketball, etc., have women PBP/announcer/color analysts.
SFP, I think you’re calling for the abolition of something that, if anything, will only grow in prevalence in the coming years. Pretty girls are a good thing, and they don’t care who knows it.
I concur. I was not necessarily impugning women, although my OP clearly speaks of the female sideline reporter. That last exchange on Sunday night caused me to post.
I should have just said “sideline reporter”. The only male sideline reporter I can think of is Tony Saragusa, and he’s just as annoying as any female out there. In a way, it’s almost as if the networks feel like they need women as part of their broadcasts, and this is the only place they can use them. I figured the reason they put Saragusa out there is because he’s 1) too big to fit in the booth and 2) because he’s so fat, he would sweat profusely.
The similarly annoying halftime “question with the coach” is equally useless.
We go to Pam Oliver on the field with Coach Fisher.
Oliver - “Coach, what do you have to do to win the game?”
Fisher - “We have to do a better job stopping them on defense, and our offense has to put more points on the board.”
Oliver - “Thanks Coach. Back up to you.”
Any male asking these questions would look as equally stupid and useless.
Right. You would think that the producer or whoever would check with the sideline reporter to see if they actually have anything interesting to add before going to her for an update. Though if play was stopped for 20 minutes they were probably getting desperate for anything to fill the void.
