Why can't they make Monday Night Football great again

[Tunescribe]

All 3 of them sucked in their own kind of way, really; their appeal was created by the desire of the audience to see and hear who would get drunk first, Meredith or Cosell...and also by the Sunday highlights that Cosell would describe ("Look at that little monkey run") during halftime.

Cosell was the original sports troll, an arrogant know-nothing.

 

[TB_Helmet]

Cosell was the original sports troll, an arrogant know-nothing.

That’s interesting. He was before my time and I know little about him. He’s usually spoken about with reverence. Interesting to hear other perspectives.

 

[Delicate Genius]

ESPN is a bush league, ****ty network.

SNF was terrible until it moved to NBC
MNF was great until it moved to ESPN

 

[Jackson 2]

ESPN underpays for their behind-the-scenes talent. Some good people DO work there, but they quickly leave the toxic environment. The only ones willing to stay and deal with the ******** and low pay are the ones so bad that they can't get a job anywhere else.

Source: Used to live in Bristol. Applied to ESPN in 2002 and laughed at the pay.

Your first paragraph looks like the exact description that an accomplished media person would write to describe NESN.

 

[primetime]

Night games all suck unless you live in the Mountain time zone.

 

[PScottman]

Time, time, time - see what's become of me. Truer words have never been spoken. Only through DVR (and just Pats games) can I watch MNF. It's too late for the working man which is supposed to be the main target audience and I'd be interested the splits of non-playing team ratings by coast to really tell the tale.

If you lose half potential audience for late (East) and half potential audience for early (West) - and the heartland is the most sparsely populated...why is it thought this concept will continue to work anyway? Especially since you can stream or game cast or catch the game numerous other ways (just make sure you turn off alerts on your phone!) so live isn't really necessary either.

Times have changed, but the MNF viewing model definitely hasn't.

 

[borg]

My 2 cents
1) Over-saturation of product....Thurs PM + Saturday college + Sunday 11 hours (including Red Zone)
By Monday.....people are hung over from football
2) Low production quality of ESPN broadcasts
3) Unappealing games hosted by humorless broadcasters
Tirico is professionally bland
McDonough is universally bland
Gruden is a gimmick
And whoever broadcasts now....I'm sure they're awful because ESPN does awful best.

Imagine eating amazing triple layer fudge cake all weekend served by Hef's bunnies.....
Then on Monday....getting half frozen Sarah Lee single layer cake served on paper plates by Lena Dunham

 

[Tunescribe]

That’s interesting. He was before my time and I know little about him. He’s usually spoken about with reverence. Interesting to hear other perspectives.

Reverence? Hah! Make no mistake, he was UNIVERSALLY despised. He had no athletic background personally -- never even played sports as a kid. His initial claim to fame was as Muhammad Ali's inadertent comedic foil. His entire shtick was saying negative things to get people riled up; as I noted earlier, he was the original sports broadcast troll. You think people like Felger and Shaughnessy are bad, Cosell was over the top with nonsense so preposterous a nightclub hosted an event where people threw bricks through television sets when he was on. My dad wouldn't even watch MNF with the sound on because of him.

He had a drinking problem (and also wore a bad toupee). Check this out:

 

[1960Pats]

Howard Cosell was terrible. As for MNF, Sunday Night Football usurped it.

I remember when MNF started and I thought it was a great idea at the time. It was ruined by placing a blabbermouth like Cosell in the booth. It infuriated me at the time. Now it seems like loud and obnoxious is their goal for every game.

 

[Tunescribe]

I remember when MNF started and I thought it was a great idea at the time. It was ruined by placing a blabbermouth like Cosell in the booth. It infuriated me at the time. Now it seems like loud and obnoxious is their goal for every game.

I remember watching MNF religiously to see the highlights of Sunday's games aired at halftime -- just imagine, it was the only place you could see them back then. And idiot Cosell did the narration proving time and again he knew nothing about football.

 

[1960Pats]

I remember watching MNF religiously to see the highlights of Sunday's games aired at halftime -- just imagine, it was the only place you could see them back then. And idiot Cosell did the narration proving time and again he knew nothing about football.

The lack of highlights now is another of my pet peeves. Back in the early days of Inside the NFL it was 15 minutes of talk (Len Dawson and Nick Buonoconti) and 45 minutes of highlights. Those were the good old days.

 

[Tunescribe]

The lack of highlights now is another of my per peeves. Back in the early days of Inside the NFL it was 15 minutes of talk (Len Dawson and Nick Buonoconti) and 45 minutes of highlights. Those were the good old days.

Yeah, I forgot about that. But you had to tune in when it was on (IF it was on in your market) because there were no DVRs or On Demand viewing. I remember Pat Summerall and Tom Brookshier did the same thing.

 

[QuantumMechanic]

The lack of highlights now is another of my pet peeves. Back in the early days of Inside the NFL it was 15 minutes of talk (Len Dawson and Nick Buonoconti) and 45 minutes of highlights. Those were the good old days.

They don't bother anymore because there's no point to it. Most potential viewers have already seen all the highlights they would show (places like nfl.com/scores have highlights of anything interesting from a game within an hour of the end of the game.)

 

[1960Pats]

They don't bother anymore because there's no point to it. Most potential viewers have already seen all the highlights they would show (places like nfl.com/scores have highlights of anything interesting from a game within an hour of the end of the game.)

That explains it. I avoid NFL.com like the plague.

They do still have Inside the NFL but it's unwatchable. The last time I checked that out they had five or six talkers (Ray Lewis, ugh, was one of them) and didn't show many highlights.

 

[Tunescribe]

@QuantumMechanic You've got to be kidding on your disagrees about Cosell. What could you possibly have gotten of value from that conceited drunk? He didn't even know what a zone pass defense was!

 

[Joker]

yeah...he was a funny racist back then..

 

[FreeTedWilliams]

and to add to the tragedy, Miami blocked John Smith's last second field goal

 

[Nikolai]

Night games all suck unless you live in the Mountain time zone.

Yep, never had complaints about the NFL schedule when i lived in Arizona.

The lack of highlights now is another of my pet peeves. Back in the early days of Inside the NFL it was 15 minutes of talk (Len Dawson and Nick Buonoconti) and 45 minutes of highlights. Those were the good old days.

From what I can tell, SNF doesn't do the highlights at halftime either anymore. I also avoid nfl.com so I tend to miss out on them.

 

[sean10mm]

I would say the modern Hot Take jagoffs are much worse than Cosell. He came about his hateability honestly, and didn't hide behind "I was just doing it ironically lolz" the second the audience went past "sports arguments over beer" mad to "please get murdered" mad at something he said. He liked attention and controversy like the egotist he undoubtedly was, but he wasn't so obviously just constructing his opinions minute-to-minute to manufacture arguments out of nothing; he sincerely wanted to tell the rest of the universe why it was stupider than him.

I find the overpowering fakeness of guys like Skip Bayless absolute death to listen to by comparison. At least a sincere blowhard might be entertaining sometimes, even if it's accidentally.

 

[TennisBallHead]

I'm no Ali fan, but I did enjoy his reply to that booger eater Cosell:

Cosell: "You are not a stupid boy".
Ali: Well, thank you, Howard. You're not as dumb as you look."