Heave Media

The following is a letter to NBC, in regards to their “Sunday Night Football”  broadcasts.

Dear NBC,

I don’t mean to playa hate. I really don’t. For the most part, you’ve done alright by me the past couple years. I watch more of your stuff than any other major network. You don’t kill everything good that comes along like Fox, and because I’m not 60 years of age or older I don’t feel compelled to watch CBS quite yet.  Yeah, you let ABC take “Scrubs” away and attempt a spinoff of it, and I still haven’t totally forgiven you for letting “Freaks & Geeks” slip away years ago, but you’re a pretty cool guy overall. After all, you put “30 Rock” into the world. That’s gotta count for something.

However, I have a bone to pick with you. A pretty big one. It’s about your broadcast this past Sunday of the Dallas Cowboys – New York Giants game on “Sunday Night Football.” Now, I had a lot of issues with the coverage of the Bears-Packers game to start the season off last week, but I wrote those away to general upset over watching my Bears blow a game over and over again. I came in with fresh, unbiased eyes this week, and yet you proceeded to still piss me off.

For one, I don’t think you as a company could have been blowing any grander of a load over Jerry Jones’  billion-dollar-baby Cowboys Stadium. Yeah, I get it. The Jumbotron is cool. It’s also really fucking big. This does not mean you get to spend an entire show talking about the cool arena that just happens to be hosting a football game. I’m pretty sure that if I were to go through that game again, and count out individual shots, there were more shots of the crowd, and mind you these are wide shots rather than personals, than of the game itself.

And as far as the game itself goes, get Cris Collinsworth the hell out of the broadcasting booth. I’ve never liked him in any of his previous color commentary incarnations, and this is no different. Homeboy looks like Will Arnett after several years of overexposure to tanning beds, and his attempts to lightly emote were terrible. Yeah, you had to replace Madden, but did you have to take a wild headfirst leap down the ladder? At least Madden, for all his bellowing, quirks and inability to properly circle things on a still frame, was a highly qualified commentator that brought something extra and interesting to the games. All Collinsworth did was gush over how cool the arena looked and talk about how happy Jones looked. Of course he was happy; his monolith of a jumbotron fucks up kickers and the NFL isn’t making him do anything about it.

Then, there is the matter of the HD presentation. I get that it’s cool to be able to get cameras into places they couldn’t go before, as it’s a more immersive experience, but the line needs to be drawn at some point, and soon. Most Hollywood movies are made on HD cameras, but you don’t see most of those using trick shots every ten seconds. Every time there was a rapid sweep up from turf level to show the massive stadium, I got seasick. Sure, it looks cool, but it’s like a film student who’s just learned how to pull off trick shots has been given way too much free reign. Plus, Collinsworth in HD is far gaudier than any giant-ass screen.

I won’t even point out the chest-beating misogyny of having the Cowboy cheerleaders dance in cages, because it’d be too obvious and that’s another rant for another time anyway. However, the entryway-through-public-bar thing I can’t let slide, because it’s so fucking stupid it blows my mind. I know it’s to create the illusion of being even closer to the game, but that’s not going to happen in a building that can hold 100,000 people. And then all the talk of how there’s a hole in the ceiling so that God can watch the team? Well, if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all. Except that Jerry Jones probably needed the hole there so that the collective ego stroking of the media that went on in there wouldn’t rip a hole right out of the building and through the ozone layer.

Congrats, NBC. You showed off the new Texas Xanadu for three hours tonight. Now next week, let’s actually cover a football game.

Peace and love,

Dom 

You suck, television.