If ESPN’s Chris Berman isn’t the most universally mocked/vilified sportscaster in the business, that’s probably because Joe Buck is isn’t on television very often. “In this day and age of the increasingly malicious media eating its young (or elders),” writes Broadcasting & Cable’s Ben Grossman, “I wondered if anyone ever had the gumption to ask the 55-year-old Berman about all this to his face.” Get ready, then, for a GUMPTION OVERDOSE (link courtesy Tom Enstice)
A lot of people think that your personality and golf don™t go together.
Except that the USGA, ESPN and the golfers love it. So, who am I broadcasting for? The viewers, the people in golf, at my place and the USGA. I ask every year what can I do to change it, and they say, œJust do it. The USGA put me on golf; it was their idea to make it more regular, to make it not just golf. But I™m not trying to be funny. I follow the golf tour pretty closely. I™ve done this since 1986, so now I™m no good at it? So, I don™t know anything about golf?
For example, they said, œHow could he say Dustin ˜The Wind™ Johnson? [Citing a Berman- esque nickname for a pro golfer.] I was on for 10 hours, not 10 seconds. I said it once. It™s OK, relax a little, would you please? It™s sports. Just relax. It is 10 hours.
I wasn™t sure anyone had ever asked you about the criticism.
[The criticism] is disappointing, but I™m not sure where it comes from. Did I get bad all of a sudden? My heart is still in the same place. I quote music from my day, and when the music today is better than in my day, I™ll quote it. And maybe a lot of the people commenting today haven™t seen me earn it. They™re young. It™s true.
Do you see a more rabid media today?
I guess. People are angrier now than we were. It™s OK.
“I was on for 10 hours, not 10 seconds. I said it once. It’s OK, relax a little, would you please? It’s sports. Just relax. It is 10 hours.”
At least he’s admitting we don’t need to take him seriously. If only he’d commit to that and move on. Sportscasting and sports journalism don’t count as real broadcasting or real journalism? If Costas and Gammons and Jim Grey took Berman’s attitude, that we don’t need to take them seriously anymore and he’s perhaps miscast on a sports news network or sports news broadcast, then I’d have less of an axe to grind with these guys. Yet, they — and print hack fan boys nationwide — are given the job of journalist and expect to be treated as such in moments like the A-Rod interview Gammons did (or, THE DECISION 2009) and Costas’ rants about Barry Bonds. Quite literally, they are game show hosts.