ESPN has finally decided to go back to what makes sense during their Monday night football broadcasts.  And that is talking about football.  No in booth guests plugging their latest shows, no sexy sideline reporters with nothing to add except a skimpy outfit (you know who you are Erin Andrews) and less from the miscast Tony Kornheiser. 

To which I say "Hallelujah!"

One of the biggest problems not only in sports TV coverage but in sports talk radio has been the infusion of "infotainment."  Programmers have been forced at gunpoint to add elements and topics not really suited to the topic at hand.  It is the belief of many consultants, that sports is "man world" and sports talk and sports programming should be "man world." It is their belief that the average man gets bored watching a stat laden, game intensive broadcast and only girls with large breasts, celebrities with mild rooting interests and talk about nothing related to the game by people unqualified to call it make a more compelling broadcast.  I once heard it described as the three B's (beer, breasts and balls.)

I wouldn't drink that kool-aid on a dare. 

In broadcasting, your core audience is called your "P-1s"  They are the most loyal customers you have and will sample your broadcast entity more often than any other group and listen or watch for the longest periods of time.  Most programmers in broadcasting agree that to achieve success in any format, you have to super serve your P-1s.  However, a lot of sports programmers or sports consultants aren't even P-1s but causal sports fans and have no idea how to do this.  And that doesn't even begin to cover the station managers who will always listen to the consultant because "he knows what he's talking about." 

Rush Limbaugh has a successful talk radio show because he talks about politics for three hours and nothing else. Since he pioneered the modern talk radio format, he should be the example for which talk radio is based.  People who listen to talk or sports talk don't want to be "related to" they want to be part of discussion and they want to come away with some piece of information they can use.  All the other superfluous crap is just that. . . superfluous crap.

Here's the truth.  The guy who turns on Monday night football and/or listens to sports talk radio is a sports fan.  He wants to learn something he didn't know.  He wants to watch the game.  He wants to hear why so and so is sucking so bad.  He wants to pick up a few darkhorse names for his fantasy team. 

What he doesn't want is a football broadcast that seems like it is an episode of "Mystery Science Theater 3000."  That's the show where the three guys would watch a really bad movie and make smart aleck remarks during the movie.  It was a great show, but that's not how we do football.

I go back to the days of guys like Curt Gowdy, someone most of the younger set would find boring.  But he just called the game.  No hype, no fooling around, just play by play and you draw your own conclusions.  Dick Enberg was another guy like that.  Just the facts. 

But the folks at Disney, thinking that they could somehow recapture the magic of Frank, Howard and Dandy Don (which, sad to say, was lightning in a bottle) tried to foist Dennis Miller on us.  I think Dennis Miller is a comic genius, but not on Monday Night Football.  As far as Kornheiser goes, I've never liked his act either on radio or on TV, so his presence annoys me to begin with.  Mike Tirico and Jaws would be fine with me, because they talk about football.  Tony, not so much.

The folks in Bristol have finally figured it out or at least have decided that the ratings have slipped enough to where it's time to go back to square one.  In an effort to attract "casual fans" they have driven away those that they should actually be serving in the first place. 

Maybe everyone else will get the memo too.