Eye candy ploy backfired on ABC
Fox's inexhaustible 'This Time It Counts' overkill was another lowlight of 2003 sports TV
It happened on sports TV in 2003 …
Pandora’s Box, Opened: It all began with ABC scratching its head, trying to figure out how to boost those flat “Monday Night Football” ratings. Firing Dennis Miller didn’t much help. Neither did hiring John Madden. How about some eye candy on the sidelines? Yeah, that’s the ticket.
And so, the concept of Lisa Guerrero, lingerie model-as-“Monday Night Football” sideline reporter, was born.
Quickly, it was determined that Guerrero couldn’t get by on looks alone. No, she needed cue cards.
As the season wore on, Guerrero’s on-air time lessened as ABC took a stab at damage control. But, by year’s end, it was clear that a new mood had taken hold on the sporting sidelines of America.
Last week, Fox Sports Net’s Bill Macdonald hysterically bailed out of an interview attempt with Nicole Richie, co-star of the Fox reality series “The Simple Life,” when Macdonald asked her to name her favorite Laker. Richie blurted out a not-so-simple reply: “Kobe (Bryant), because I want him to have sex with me.”
The next night on ESPN’s New England Patriots-New York Jets telecast, Suzy Kolber tried to interview Joe Namath about the current struggling state of his former team.
“I want to kiss you,” Namath told Kolber, twice. A few days later, Namath apologized to Kolber, saying he had been a little too “full of some Christmas cheer.”
Moral of the story, not that anyone at any network is necessarily listening:
If you choose to peddle sex on the sideline, don’t be surprised when it sells.
This Time It Didn’t Matter: With a baseball All-Star game and a new wrinkle to pitch, Fox drove regular viewers screaming from the room with its 24/7 “This Time It Counts” overkill. Fox built its inexhaustible ad campaign around the fact that the game’s winner would receive home-field advantage in the World Series. That went to the American League by virtue of its 7-6 triumph over the National League.
Three-and-half months later, the New York Yankees, with home-field advantage, lost to the Florida Marlins in the World Series. The Marlins clinched the title in Game 6, which was played at Yankee Stadium.
Yes, Masters, Anything You Want, Masters: Working on a year-to-year contract with the Masters, CBS covered the tournament exactly the way Augusta National Country Club chairman Hootie Johnson wanted it covered.
With Martha Burk and the National Council of Women’s Organization picketing and protesting the club’s lack of female membership, CBS ignored the controversy altogether and televised the tournament as if Johnson were running the production truck.
Mike Weir won the Masters to claim the champion’s green jacket. With its toadying brand on non-journalism, CBS slinked away in a somewhat different hue: yellow.