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Sympathy for Tony Kornheiser

I was reading some of the comments in a previous post, and it made realize how bad the MNF format is for someone like Kornheiser.

Thornbury probably summed it up best:

Like Dennis Miller before him, Kornheiser's entertainment value is precisely why he's such a bad fit for MNF. PTI is a fairly entertaining show. But for Monday Night Football, the |STAR|game|STAR| is the entertainment, not the guys yucking it up in the broadcast booth. So when Miller or Kornheiser or whoever tries to do his usual schtick, it falls flat because no one is there for that. Wrong place, wrong time.

In fact, the most telling moment of the broadcast last night for me was when Kornheiser wanted to harp on the Favre/Rodgers comparison yet again, and said to Jaws something to the effect of: "Can I say something about Favre without having you jump all over me for it?" And when Jaws said, "No," then Kornheiser said something to the effect of: "Then why am I here?".

As far as real football fans (and a top football analyst like Jaws and solid, professional play-by-play guy like Mike Tirico) are concerned, the answer is: "No good reason."

But it's not really Kornheiser's fault - he was a star on the network, and the executives threw a bunch of money at him, and the producers, who probably aren't serious football fans, told him to do his schtick. The real fault lies with the executives either not knowing enough about football to realize this was a bad idea, or knowing enough, but cynically thinking the public was stupid enough to want his distracting and off-base commentary rolling during the game. It's the way all big business works, though. If people like a little Kornheiser on a weekday, then give them more Kornheiser during the game. If something works, they just push it until people choke on it.