It’s good to see professional broadcasters finally getting their due, in the form of handsome salaries. They are the reason we tune in. In the old days, few bothered to learn the mechanics of a combination punch or the complexities of the sweet science. Seeing the great Ali was one thing, while hearing Howard Cosell excoriate someone on live television was why people watched. They wanted to see his Jesse Jacksonian flare for rhyming compound adjectives.
The games, despite universal betting, did not and do not matter. The plays on the field are commonplace, ordinary, and nondescript. It takes someone with a lot of money to describe them properly. The novelty of Tony Romo predicting the plays before they happen? Suddenly, it's more interesting, even if what happens is anything but. And it's worth every cent.
For a long time, the news has been secondary to the person reporting the news. Despite what long-haired dolts from the Woodstock generation claim, Vietnam was not big news - not then, not now. But Walter Cronkite was big, big news. He made people care in a way they wouldn’t have otherwise. So it’s nice to see these wizards of the teleprompter getting what they deserve. They are being rewarded for their rare talents and uncommon gravitas. Reading is hard enough without a tough audience of producers and camera operators unmoved by moving commentary. Where else besides a doctor’s office is someone expected to recite from a great distance? Sports announcers don’t have that luxury. They mostly go to the well and pull out idioms from the bottom of the barrel, tossing them onto the playing surface like a octopus in Detroit. Somehow, some way, they always stick.
Sports without announcers are confusing spectacles akin to the pointless, unpaid misadventures of children playing for the “love of the game.” We're adults and we deserve more. Not as much as the announcers - they deserve a lot more.
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