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Televised sports take a new turn: for laughs

The intersection of games and comedy is being well-mined on networks and cable.

By JOHN C. COTEY, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published April 18, 2002

Mohr

Arnold

David Duval is on the Best Damn Sports Show Period, and if you are tuning in to hear him break down his Masters chances or analyze his backswing, you're in the wrong place.

If you're here to watch Duval crank whiffle golf balls at Tom Arnold, then put that remote down.

While Arnold and Duval seem as likely an entertaining combination as, well, Arnold and Roseanne, such meetings are becoming a staple of sports programming.

Sports, meet comedy. Comedy, meet sports.

Arnold is a host on Fox Sports Net's Best Damn Sports Show Period. Jay Mohr (from Jerry Maguire) has a sports variety show, Mohr Sports, on ESPN after a stint at Fox Sports Net's NFL This Morning. Jimmy Kimmel does bits for Fox NFL Sunday. And Wanda Sikes of The Chris Rock Show does pieces for HBO's Inside the NFL.

While Mohr seeks his footing in the sports arena -- his show (airing Mondays at 12:30 a.m.) has gotten mixed reviews -- others have received responses that indicate fans don't mind a little humor with their highlights.

"I doubt that it will (last forever) because so much of our business is cyclical, but I can tell you for right now, it's worked extremely well for us," said Rick Bernstein, executive producer for HBO Sports.

Bernstein says the long-running Inside the NFL has introduced many things over the years, but "none of it got quite the reaction we got out of Wanda Sikes. ... She pushes the envelope as far as anyone is willing to on anyone's studio show."

Take her piece on a mythical Doug Williams school for helping black quarterbacks stay in the pocket. To some, it was hilarious. To others, not so funny.

But either way, it drew a huge response.

"There's a line there," Bernstein said. "What's funny to some people offends others. You have to find that balance."

Just about everyone is trying. Mohr has been more miss than hit so far, with stale and dated jokes about Danny Almonte and the Dallas Cowboys, but with a weekly guest, monologue and remote spot, his half-hour show will lead off ESPN's 8 p.m. block of original programming Wednesdays, beginning in June.

Kimmel's segments have become a staple at Fox NFL Sunday. And Best Damn Sports Show Period is flourishing after initially falling flat after its July debut.

No one seems sure who began the sports-comedy fusion. Most agree that banter between Dan Patrick and Keith Olbermann on SportsCenter showed there was more than one way to present the scores, though the hiring of actual comedians for sports broadcasts is a new phenomenon.

"Our philosophy is you don't need to get hit over the head with X's and O's. ... You'll get that during the game," said Lou D'Ermilio, the vice president of communications for Fox Sports.

"There's serious conversation and there's having fun. Our show is a blend of both. In this business, if you stand still, you're dead."

Exactly, said Neal Pilson, former president of CBS Sports and now a consultant.

"No sports journalistic show has ever really worked on television," Pilson said. "The best was (Howard) Cosell and no one watched. Viewers aren't into investigative journalism. The sports public wants to be entertained."

Despite what many critics call lowbrow and crude humor, more and more people are watching, especially Best Damn Sports Show Period. It has attracted more viewers every month since going to a two-hour format in December. It's biggest audiences were last month, including a high of 682,000 viewers for one week. Those numbers are not mind-boggling, but advertisers have been impressed -- the show is sold out for the rest of the year and accounts for 10 to 15 percent of Fox Sports Net's overall sales revenue, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

This despite the failure of the Dennis Miller experiment on ABC's Monday Night Football. But Pilson said you can't compare MNF with any of the cable offerings because one is network and prime time and dissected more intensely by the media. The others are on cable stations that have to fill 8,760 hours a year.

The main concern to many critics is the level of humor these shows are sinking to. Then again, Miller was criticized for being too smart for the average sports fan.

"Lowbrow? Dennis did smart comedy and was esoteric, and how did that work out?" Arnold said. "The critics were brutal to Dennis. Sports are sacred but to a point; it is entertainment. Maybe guys like George Plimpton and George Will don't like the Anna Kournikova jokes, but the average guy gets it."

Apparently, so do guests. Many who are scheduled for 10 minutes on Best Damn Sports Show Period stay for two hours.

And Bob Knight, who few would link with shows of this ilk, requested that Arnold do a one-on-one interview with him.

"That just blew me away," said Arnold, who showed his journalistic prowess by asking the question most likely to set Knight off last: "Have you ever given a rousing speech and then farted?"

Crude? Perhaps. But Knight smiled.

"That's the idea," Arnold said.

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