December 09, 2010

Noel Murray vs. Sports Broadcasters

A must-read piece by one of the AV Club's better minds:

I’m not asking that sports broadcasts start integrating Twitter, because chances are that would be awful. (I think of how CNN uses Twitter, with the most inane commentary on the day’s events either scrolling along the screen or read aloud by anchors, and I shudder.) Still, I do find the “I’m just an dumb old guy who doesn’t understand this kooky modern world” attitude of most sports announcers doesn’t just fail to make games more enjoyable; it actively impedes pleasure.
This crystalizes something I've been thinking about for a while: There's really a cold war these days between different types of sports fans. There are sports snobs, and everyone else. Sports snobs love "Moneyball," blogs, sabermetrics, soccer, and methodical approaches to the game- and they hate NASCAR, Chris Berman and all methods of sportswriter and sportscaster cliche. I am a sports snob, no question about it- but I acknowledge that myself and my fellow snobs can get, well, snobby, and that we're clearly in the minority.

Posted by Stephen Silver at December 9, 2010 03:08 PM
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