Nov 28, 2006

Monday Night Football: then and now

I watched my first Monday Night football game while staying at the Ramada Inn in Fort Walton Beach Florida during an audit of the FWB Centel office (Centel is now owned by Sprint).

It was September 1970 and the game was between the Cleveland Browns and the New York Jets.

Keith Jackson was the play-by-play announcer. Howard Cosell and former Dallas Cowboy quarterback Don Meredith joined Jackson in the broadcast booth.

At the start of the 2006 football season, the broadcast team left me cold. For me it was a big disappointment. After the third game the contention and disruption in the broadcast booth was just too much.

From then on I turned off the TV audio and listened to the play-by-play on the radio.

from left: Tony Kornheiser, Mike Tirico and Joe Theismann

I enjoy Monday Night Football so much more while listening to the radio broadcast where Tony Kornheiser is not a source of disruption and discord in the broadcast booth.

I don’t care if Kornheiser is a big-name Washington Post sports columnist, I choose not to listen to the TV game broadcast. I don’t like his argumentative, disruptive style.

To be fair, I should turn the radio off and listen to the TV broadcast again. Maybe Kornheiser has mellowed since the start of the 2006 football season.