The Start of Football Has Its Downside

At least they don't take themselves too seriously

NBC will launch their coverage of the NFL on Thursday September 10th.  It will officially bring an end to the John Madden era with Chris Collinsworth taking his place in the boothfor the regular season.  So let’s see, a non-Thanksgiving Thursday night game and the replacement of a legend with a, well, Chris Collinsworth.  Nope, it doesn’t get much worse than that.  I honestly can’t imagine a way to bring more negatives into the start of NFL football.  Oh, wait, how about including Tim McGraw and the Black Eyed Peas?

Those two acts will be headlining NBC’s now annual practice of attempting to force a large percentage of their viewers to commit suicide with a pre-game concert.  Tim McGraw will be attempting to out-awful his wife, Faith Hill, who has been encouraging football fans to tune in 10 minutes late to games to ensure they miss her opening song.  The Black Eyed Peas decision to participate is a little more curious.  If you ask the majority of the public, they’ll tell you that they enjoy the Black Eyed Peas, or at the very least they’ll tell you that they’ve heard good things about them.  If the group goes through with performing in front of a national TV audience, they will surely ruin that perception.  Saying the Black Eyed Peas are an above average musical group is like saying Al Davis is a competent owner.  Both have been living off of accomplishments from their youth, or their less decrepit, in Davis’s case.  And, of course, both are paid entirely too much money based on their current prowess. 

Even if you are a huge fan of Tim McGrawor the Black Eyed Peas, it’s unlikely you’ll enjoy both.  NBC has adopted the policy of trying to please everyone by including a variety of musical acts, but that’s not really how music works.  Say I’m a huge Rolling Stones fan, am I going to want to go to their show if Lady Gaga is opening for them?  Well, maybe if I’m getting paid to assassinate her.  Even if I’m a Jay-Z fanatic, I’m probably skipping the show he does with Metallica.  That kind of combination only works in an utopia.  For example, I’d gladly attend the Johnny Cash, Jimi Hendrix and Tupac concert in heaven.  NBC hasn’t exactly assembled a similar line-up or environment. 

Music isn’t really like food.  If you have Mexican, Italian and Chinese food available, you’ll probably be able to find something that you enjoy and you won’t want to stab yourself for having to be around the rest.  I suppose in this case you could just change the channel or put the TV on mute during the concert, but the remote is more than an arm-length away and if you remember correctly, I just ate three ethnicities of food.

Tags: Chris Collinsworth, football, NBC, NFL

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