Friday, March 31, 2000

If I were to pick the perfect network to televise the XFL, it would be NBC.

After all, few broadcast outlets have done as much over the last decade to strip themselves of their integrity as has NBC Sports.

I think I learned all I needed to know about NBC Sports after their “coverage” of the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. What once had a regal air about it as the pinnacle of sports broadcasting - the Olympics on television – NBC managed to manipulate into one a 16-day cheese-fest that was difficult to watch. It was oversaturated with pseudo-drama – serial sap pieces about how Johnny, the kid next door, used to do the Fosbury flop over porch railings on his paper route only to now vie for the gold medal. Events that occurred while NBC was on the air, in the same time zone, were canned, packaged, and replayed “plausibly live” to better fit into a prime time lineup, depriving us of the rare chance to watch the usually faraway Olympic competition as it actually happened. 

It used to be a solemn Jim McKay reporting the Munich kidnappings. Now it was John Tesh rhapsodizing about women’s gymnastics. 

Boy, I can’t wait for Sydney. (Just so I don’t miss them, thinking they’re soaps and flipping past them to SportsCenter, which still contains a semblance of sports journalism.)

NBC Sports has done more than any other network to hasten the merger of sports and adulterated drama. It’s entertaining to watch them try to promote the NBA or golf and keep a straight face while setting their promotion meters to “maximum sap.”  By the time the XFL rolls around, accomodating it will be a cinch for NBC.

NBC has no spine and no soul, either of which would give it a whiff of the stink emanating from the XFL, a version of football so disfigured by thoughtless (not to mention dangerous) gimmicks like eliminating the fair catch rule that it will be unrecognizable to actual sports fans.

But stripping themselves of their independent will is now a regular ritual at NBC. I will never forgive them for what they did to Jim Gray at last year’s World Series. Where did NBC locate the nerve to make him apologize for refusing to kiss the hind end of the infuriatingly obdurate Pete Rose? Well, surely
MasterCard, which sponsored the pregame ceremony, provided a hint. They were furious that their glossy evening was interrupted by Gray trying to inject some balance. Those NBC sluts.

You realize, of course, that NBC’s dream staff is a squad of Ahmad Rashad’s, carrying out what Mike Lupica calls “sports gerbilism.” They’re scared of a guy like Bob Costas, who actually has a brain and a conscience. So scared they refused to let him interview Michael Jordan when his gambling allegations broke in the early 90's. Guess who got the interview? Our favorite caddy himself – boy, was that a brutal cross-examination. I can’t imagine how a true journalist like Costas has the stomach to stick around there.

So the dehumanizing process of climbing into bed with something with something as shameless as the WWF for the XFL – which neatly shears enough of the swearing (we hope) out of pro wrestling and enough of the substance out of sports to make the perfect NBC television product - is effortless for an invertebrate like NBC Sports president Dick Ebersol.

"In Vince McMahon, we're getting the best marketer in America," Ebersol said in the Associated Press."We're very interested in riding the success wave of the WWF."

So interested that the innumerable question marks about being involved with such a base organization are shoved aside while NBC calculates the bottom line.

It is sad to see Ebersol occupy the lofy post made grand by Roone Arledge at ABC. Arledge was a true visionary, an innovator who was driven by bringing the fan closer to the beauty, spontaneity, and power of live sports.  Ebersol is a little man unafraid to cut corners of conscience and thoughtlessly warp sports into entertainment.

And NBC’s not just COVERING the XFL, which would be questionable enough. They’re becoming PARTNERS with the WWF! They put down no fewer than 30 million sheep for a 3 percent stake in the company.

This isn’t your typical business partnership. This is the sports division of one of the three major networks jumping into the arms of a pro wrestling organization Keith Olbermann rightly calls “so vile, so damaging to kids, so racist, sexist, so ANTI-HUMANITY, that in that context, John Rocker would be a minor villain.”

I am saddened, but not surprised. The mass appeal of pro wrestling – soap operas for males – and the concurrent sagging interest in actual sports on television ensures we are on a path to the complete indistinguishabitilty between sport and sitcom. 

Eventually, we’ll look back fondly on the days when panting over the O.J. trial, NBC-like, was still aspired to as good journalism.

Nathan Bierma is part time announcer and producer at WBBL and editor of WBBL.com.

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