A successful evolution
ESPN's first original series is a quality look at life on a fictional pro football team. It's the network's latest attempt to attract more casual sports fans.
By ERIC DEGGANS, Times Television Critic
© St. Petersburg Times
published August 25, 2003
Let's say you're a worldwide sports network known for your snarky scores 'n' clip shows, extensive broadcasts of sporting events and blanket coverage of all the professional sports stuff fans love most.
As far as viewers are concerned, you're the CNN of the sports world. So why develop a fictional TV series about a nonexistent football team?
"We, in many respects, "capped out' when it comes to getting the hard-core sports fan. . . . We have the male 18 to 34 young upscale viewer in our back pocket," said Mark Shapiro, executive vice president of programming and production for ESPN, speaking to TV critics last month in California.
"For ESPN to evolve, for us to reach a new level, we're going to have to commandeer those broad, casual sports fans that are interested in human emotion and drama that sports bring to the table. Our dramatic series will allow us to test just how far we can stretch our brand."
If ESPN's first dramatic series, Playmakers, is any indication, that brand stretches very far indeed.
Created by Alias executive producer John Eisendrath, Playmakers comes off like a 21st century North Dallas Forty. It explores the struggles of players and their head coach to hang on to their jobs in the viciously competitive world of professional football.
And unlike some previous ESPN dramatic efforts - like, say, the on-the-cheap movie of John Feinstein's book about college basketball coach Bobby Knight, A Season on the Brink - this 11-episode series is quite good.
Sure, there are some stereotypes: the cocky, successful running back from the ghetto who is secretly addicted to crack (played by Omar Gooding, Jerry Maguire co-star Cuba's brother); and the ruthless owner who cares only about the players whose success lines his pockets.
But Playmakers tries to build nuance in these characters, and it showcases an amazing turn by Russell Hornsby (the superachieving chief resident on ABC's canceled medical drama Gideon's Crossing) as a 30-something running back trying desperately to hold on to his job and his life. Other cool actors: Crime Story villain Tony Denison as team head coach Mike George and Marcello Thedford (Mekhi Phifer's mentally challenged brother on ER) as a fretful offensive lineman.
We see players, knees deeply scarred from operations, taking injections of drugs and ice water baths to stay competitive. We see a linebacker who is a rising star nearly sidelined by guilt after a tackle paralyzes a player from the waist down. We see players (and even a coach) afraid to be honest about their physical problems because of pride and fear of losing their position.
And wait until the second episode, when viewers see just how far a drug-addicted player will go to beat an NFL drug test (the answer involves a catheter and a vial of "clean urine").
"In a world that has a very specific macho code, (they) are not allowed to express things that they clearly feel," said Eisendrath, who sees the series - based on a made-up team to avoid the NFL vetting scripts - as a meditation on the ways men relate to each other and the world. "They clearly are average people who are scared just like you and I are scared, but they are in a world that doesn't allow them to express it."
Much of this nuance is delivered through interior monologues: "The truth is, you're scared to walk away," thinks the guilty-feeling linebacker, who briefly considers quitting. "You hate the game, but you don't have the strength to leave it. So you play angry. . . . That's what makes you good."
Turns out, Playmakers is the latest step in a slow progression helmed by ESPN golden boy Shapiro. Last year he made headlines with the profanity-laced Season on the Brink. In December, a TV movie about college football coaching legend Paul "Bear" Bryant's time at Texas A&M, The Junction Boys, also did well. (As other networks cut back on made-for-TV projects, ESPN is planning to air three or four movies each year.)
Recently, longtime Shapiro pal and WFTS-Ch. 28 sports director Jay Crawford announced plans to head for Manhattan to co-host ESPN2's Cold Pizza, a sports-oriented morning show starting Oct. 1. The show promises to blow up the form the way Fox Sports Net's The Best Damn Sports Show Period fractures the evening talk show.
So, is there a chance that ESPN may wind up as the sports version of MTV, a music video network that rarely shows music videos anymore?
"I was reading something that said the lowest-rated hours on MTV are the hours they put on music videos," Shapiro said before noting that only 6 percent of ESPN's annual schedule is original entertainment. "We are never going to lose sense of what got us to the dance: live events."
Still, Playmakers offers a tantalizing glimpse into the possibilities if ESPN manages to marry a high level of quality to an incisive exploration of the places culture and sports collide.
Forget about TNN or Spike TV or whatever they're calling it now. ESPN is on the verge of becoming the true channel for men - and much more.
AT A GLANCE
Playmakers debuts with a commercial-free episode Tuesday at 9 p.m. on ESPN. Grade: A. Rating: TV-MA (Mature Audiences).
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