Surely you've seen it, if you watch any televised team sports these days. The half-time/intermission shows that used to feature studio sets with 'experts' talking to each other, analyzing the game, have moved into the stands and onto the field/floor/whatever. The experts are all bundled up against the cold, wearing fur hats big enough to cover J-Lo's butt.
You get a lot of leaning in to try and make sense of the lips moving on one of their co-workers' faces. They can't hear what is being said/asked because the morons in the background are hootin' and hollerin' for their mamas to come to the TV and see them making horse's patooties of themselves. Or maybe it's just the fur ear mufflers. In either case it makes for some occasionally funny pictures, but DREADFUL infotainment.
This phenomena is like a plague on those of us who actually WANT to hear what these experts (including some, who clearly are not) have to say. Instead of insightful analysis, we get answers to questions never posed and no answers to asked questions.
And for what? Atmosphere? Ladies and gentlemen (and I AM talking to YOU John Shannon), the atmosphere here at the Castle of Confusion is quiet and around 72 degrees Fahrenheit. A little cooler than your studio. THAT'S the atmosphere I want to share. I don't want to stand amongst the mentally-deranged and prove it. I see no reason to stand there listening to the mass gestalt of stupidity chant, curse and make strange noises. I am not drunk and have no desire to see drunks on the way to their cars to endanger people's lives.
Besides, your experts have been there before!! Most of them. Let them sit in the stands while the game is on, before hurrying down/up to the nice, quiet, temperate studio to give us the benefit of their hard-earned expertise. Inform me. It's hard deciphering Terry Bradshaw and Don Cherry at the best of times. There's a reason why Terry comes across as a goof on the field, while Cherry is held in check in a little studio by Ron McLean. It's when Cherry escapes that he sounds too much like Bradshaw.
So, unless you promised your next door neighbour's kid that he/she will get their mug on TV for the expected 15 minutes, stuff the on-field/floor/whatever sets in mothballs and get your commentators back to where they belong. In studio, predicting a big Patriot victory.
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