David Mandl on Sat, 22 Sep 2001 02:14:48 +0200 (CEST)


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<nettime> Football broadcasters lose their minds



Now I've seen everything.  Looks like the final push towards uber-P.C.,
way beyond even the most insane overreaction we've seen on some college
campuses, is coming from...football broadcasters.  This article could
easily be passed off as a satirical piece from the Onion.

It might actually be fun to watch a game or two to see these lunatics
squirm to find inoffensive words to describe every play.

Sorry about posting this entire long article, but each paragraph is more
ridiculous than the one before, and I just couldn't choose. ("The first
thing I thought about, seeing people run out and the firefighters and
police go in, was, I'll never use the word `tough' again to describe
football players.")

   --Dave.

----------------------------------------

The New York Times
Football, Set for TV Return, Is Benching Its War Clichés

September 21, 2001

By RICHARD SANDOMIR

When college and pro football return to television screens this weekend
after a one-week absence, the presentation of the broadcasts will be a
subdued and patriotic one, network executives and announcers said.

They have discussed an approach to language that will attempt to avoid the
war metaphors that are prevalent in football and are planning productions
that will mute or eliminate percussive graphics, blaring music and
animated football robots.

For at least this week, ABC Sports will not open "Monday Night Football"
with animated explosions or Hank Williams Jr.'s traditional rowdy song.
Fox Sports will tame its famously trumpeting theme song. CBS Sports said
it would use only patriotic music.

Each network will turn down the volume on sound effects like the whooshing
that leads into some instant replays.

"We won't come on rah-rah and get people excited from the outset," said
Bob Goodrich, coordinating producer of ABC's college football.

Terry Ewert, executive producer of CBS Sports, said flashiness would be
out. "Everyone recognizes this is not business as usual," Ewert said.

In adopting a more sensitive approach, network sports divisions are
following the lead of the entertainment industry, which has withdrawn
movies and music videos and rewritten scripts to avoid placing
inappropriate material before the public. But the altered sportscasting
model, however temporary, may create a problem for announcers trying to
strike a balance between exhibiting good judgment and turning off viewers
seeking an exciting weekend diversion.

"It's a fine line," said Dick Stockton, a play-by-play announcer for Fox's
N.F.L. games. "You don't want fans to feel ashamed or guilty that they're
watching a sports event, but you don't want to trivialize what's happening
around us."

In response to the terrorist attacks last week, all National Football
League games and major college games were postponed. Now as they return,
networks are seeking to replace the usual sound and visual effects with
patriotic tributes. For the first time in many years, networks will
televise the national anthem. (Usually they forgo the anthem to show
advertisements.) ABC will carry the Penn State University marching band's
rendition of "God Bless America." Fox Sports will add a graphical
depiction of the flag and CBS a red-white-and-blue ribbon with a star to
their on-screen scoreboards. Some will carry vignettes depicting fallen or
surviving heroes of the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks.

The language of football has long been packed with warlike references and
bellicose imagery, from bombs to blitzes and aerial attacks to shotgun
formations.

"I was in New York when the attacks happened," said John Madden, Fox's
main N.F.L. analyst. "The first thing I thought about, seeing people run
out and the firefighters and police go in, was, I'll never use the word
`tough' again to describe football players.

"What those people did was tough. What we do is a game."

Sports have always been an escape from the vagaries of life and a way to
release daily tensions. Football, especially, has evolved into a 100-yard
war - Clausewitz on the gridiron - with playbooks devised by field
generals named Lombardi, Shula or Bowden. Television played along,
emphasizing through language, graphics and sound effects the ground game
as sport's version of trench warfare and the passing game as the
equivalent of aerial bombing.

But the horrors of terrorism prompted a reassessment of the military
emphasis, even by players and coaches accustomed to using the terms as
part of their daily routine. "I'm more cautious of some of the things that
normally come out of my mouth," Giants Coach Jim Fassel said when asked
about battle analogies. "Because I don't want to draw any references.
Where our country is right now, I'd rather draw a fine line and not get
into those terms."

The Giants' quarterback, Kerry Collins, said: "I haven't really tried to
watch my vocabulary or watch what I'm saying. Maybe we need to."

The best network announcers rarely, if ever, invoke the hoariest war
clichés. And some say the term blitz, from the German blitzkrieg, for
"lightning war," has evolved into more of a football term than an example
of war lexicon.

"Overwrought terminology is not how you would do a game under any
circumstances," said Al Michaels, the play-by-play announcer of "Monday
Night Football." "But there is a sensitivity now. It's a case of
heightened awareness about the analogies you'd use. You'd never want to
stray into an analogy like a `hijacking.' But I'm not concerned we'll fall
into that trap."

Madden said: "I've never used `bomb' or `aerial attack.' I just say, `They
throw the ball a lot.' You have to be yourself and not use words any
different from the way you usually talk."

Viewers should not be surprised, executives and announcers said, if a
military reference slips from someone's mouth.  But Greg Gumbel, CBS's
lead N.F.L. announcer, said: "Some people may be offended, but it is a
football game. If everyone is going to move on and try to get back to a
normal life, you have to judge the words in their context."

How long the networks mute their approach will largely depend on the scope
of the United States' military response.

Fred Gaudelli, producer of "Monday Night Football," said, "You don't want
to use foolish terms that compare the game to acts of war." He wants his
announcers to avoid the type of linguistic belligerence that he has heard
in the past.  "I've done games where a blitzing linebacker bowls over a
fullback, sacks the quarterback and the announcer says, `Watch Lawrence
Taylor blow up the quarterback.' "

Jay Rothman, who produces ESPN's "Sunday Night Football," said: "We can't
be funny or cute. We'll avoid the military clichés: the blitzes, the
sacks, the throwing bullets. I've told my people to be respectful and
factual."

One top sports television executive, Steve Anderson, executive vice
president of ESPN, expressed a different perspective on changing the tone
and style of his network's college and pro football games. While saying
that the measures "feel right," he wondered which audience the changes are
for.

"We're concerned about being too politically correct," he said. "Do
viewers want to watch what they've always watched? Are we doing this just
for ourselves? Is it necessary? My feeling is a percentage of viewers
would never be offended, but that some would."

The effort to purge the networks of potentially offensive references
extends beyond games like football. NBC Sports, which is carrying the MBNA
Cal Ripken Jr. 400 stock-car race on Sunday, will eliminate references to
its "war wagon," from which its Nascar pit road announcers speak.

ESPN reviewed all its in-house promotional advertisements.  It quickly
eliminated its humorous spots, and this past Monday it junked a
pay-per-view ad for college football games that promised "Saturday
soldiers fighting for every touchdown." And TBS removed from its
commercial rotation an Anheuser-Busch spot that depicted an urban skyline
- not New York's, a network spokeswoman said - with imagery that evoked
the look of the World Trade Center.




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