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And the survey says: Berman, Thomas rule

A Times readers poll reveals favorites for local and national sports broadcasts, personalities.

By SHARON GINN

© St. Petersburg Times,
published August 4, 2001

Times readers survey: the results

More than 2,400 responded to our second Great Tampa Bay TV/Radio Survey, either by mail, fax or online. Not only did nearly half name ESPN's Chris Berman as the nation's best sports host or personality, just as many said Chris Thomas reigns supreme as the top local sportscaster and the top sports radio host.

Berman, who helped launch ESPN 22 years ago, has given plenty of love to the Tampa Bay area over the years, even when the Bucs were a national embarrassment. Our respondents decided to give some back: 47.4 percent rated Berman the best, well ahead of NBC Olympic host and baseball guru/announcer Bob Costas (32.8).

Making the vote more interesting was the Sunday morning preview show Berman hosts, Sunday NFL Countdown, finished a distant second behind the wildly popular -- according to our readers, anyway -- Fox NFL Sunday.

"I'm honored to be thought of that way by fans anywhere," Berman said. "I think some of it has to do with the fact that I have a soft spot for the Bucs. ... Ever since Doug Williams threw me some bombs and Lee Roy Selmon sacked me, I think they've been looking after me.

"I thank the people. I've fooled them again."

As a thank-you gift, Berman shared his thoughts about the Bucs. Not surprisingly, he has high expectations for Tampa Bay, pointing out that like St. Louis and Denver, the team addressed all its needs in the off-season.

"I expect them to get to the Super Bowl," said Berman, who also predicted Derrick Brooks will strike a new deal with the Bucs and end his holdout.

"This is their year. ... And since it's the swan song in the division, this would be a good time to get that (can't-win-)below-40 degrees thing out of the way. Please!"

Where Berman inspired love from our readers (well, mostly), Thomas -- like a few people in our survey -- inspired passion. Plenty of respondents expressed their dislike for Thomas, but many more said they adore his straight talk and that he doesn't take himself, or anything else, seriously.

As Ch. 8's lead sports anchor he topped our survey for the second time, winning more dominantly than he did in 1994, when he got 34.6 percent of the votes. This time Thomas got 48.4, nearly twice as much as Ch. 13's Chip Carter, the second-place finisher (24.9).

As a weekday host on WDAE-AM 620, Thomas won more comfortably with 45.6 percent of the votes, well ahead of No. 2 Scot Brantley of WQYK-AM 1010 (19.3) and No. 3 Steve Duemig of WDAE (14.3).

Comedian-turned-football-analyst Dennis Miller and national radio host Jim Rome inspired as much passion as Thomas, nearly all of it negative.

Though we could count on two hands the number of respondents who wrote in nice things about Miller, more than 50 expressed extreme displeasure with his role as the third person in Monday Night Football's booth. Officially, 59.5 percent want him off the broadcast, while the rest voted to keep him.

And while a little more than half who answered our question about Rome claimed to enjoy his show, hate might not be too strong a word for the rest. (Many of your comments about him were unprintable.)

Disclaimer: This survey was just for fun and completely unscientific. But we loved hearing from readers, especially when it came to things we didn't include in the survey.

We did not mention Al Keck, who was let go as Ch. 10 sports director this year and joined Ch. 28 several weeks ago as its weekend sports anchor. But dozens said they were upset with Ch. 10 for not re-signing him and glad he has found a new job. Several also passed along compliments for two other weekend anchors, J.P. Peterson of Ch. 8 and Chris Field of Ch. 13.

Many of you couldn't believe we failed to include Gene Deckerhoff for his play-by-play on the Bucs Radio Network.

"What about Gene Deckerhoff?" wrote Dave Cauchon of Pinellas Park. "He rocks."

We didn't forget Gene. It's just the Bucs/Florida State announcer is such a state legend that pitting him against anyone else would have been pointless. Maybe a question should have been: Does Gene Deckerhoff rock? A) Yes. B) No. Fox's John Madden easily was the favorite NFL game analyst (56.3) while on-air partner Pat Summerall got a little more than half the votes of the No. 1 NFL play-by-play announcer, ABC's Al Michaels (46.2).

Nearly two-thirds said they watch more TV sports than other programming, and about the same number of respondents rated local sports radio as good or very good.

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