AFL on ESPN on ABC
Tim Ball
Monday March 5, 2007
Consistency is where winners always find success. While change is always scary, there is nothing but reassurance with the AFL on ESPN.
The first broadcast of the season between the Kansas City Brigade and the Chicago Rush showcased a great combination of excitement and stability.
Ron Jaworski headed the broadcast in the right direction from the get go. It’s hard not to like Jaws when he’s talking Arena Football.
(I still remember the show on ESPN during the NFL season where Jaworski placed an AFL football on the set next to him.)
Merril Hoge played his role well. When he learns more about the game – like the field being one-quarter and not one-half the size of the outdoor field – Hoge is going to represent even better.
ABC/ESPN covered the game in the way that people tuning in for the first time would feel welcomed and informed. In fact, every aspect of the broadcast supported the league.
All of us that know the AFL game do not need our hands held through the drama that is the nature of Arena Football. While the ups and downs and odd aspects of Arena Football played out on the screen,
ESPN kept the listener informed every step of the way.
You couldn’t ask for a better broadcast unless you’re a Rush fan.
Even the commercials were Arena Football excitement.
While the reigning World Champions struggled to find a rhythm, the ESPN broadcast team with Jaworski and Hoge were moving through the game with ease.
Finally the AFL is finding a voice to tell its story.
Knowledge is key
ESPN knows a thing or two about sports and proved that Arena Football was not going to be handled lightly.
Wiring up the quarterbacks on the field and talking to coaches and players on the sidelines was handled the way it’s supposed to be handled.
Jaworski and Hoge used their time with the athletes to ask questions that led to understanding what was going on and not just trying to capture fleeting excitement.
Arena Football has to leave the wow factor behind and head into normalcy as a well-established game in its own right. Americans like football only one way, winning football. The AFL has earned its spot among American sports not on its oddity, but by its value as a game of excellence.
This is where Jaworski shined. He explained a football game to the viewer. He didn’t try to sell something else. Arena Football is only football when the wrappers are peeled away.
Hoge also explained the “two-way” changes to the league as a part of the outcome of this game. Not as a controversy brewing in a league millions of football don’t know anything about.
Things move so fast on the field that the team of Jaworski and Hoge slowed it all down for anyone to understand.
Jaworski and Hoge get an A for the knowledge they displayed to the old and new students of this game as they were calling the fast-paced game of Arena Football.
ESPN has given the AFL what it has always deserved.
Top ten AFL moments
Chris Berman and Barry Wagner.
Two of the greatest in football history.
For all of the traditionalists, old guard and purists of Arena Football, you owe “Boomer” lunch and a handshake.
Berman presented the league what it has always deserved.
The half-time segment on ESPN on the first broadcast of the season erased all of the time wasted on players not of the AFL in all of the years NBC had the league.
With Berman’s inimitable voice making households stop in their tracks, he counted down the ten greatest moments in AFL history.
Loyal AFL fans know there’s thousands to pick from, but number one was certainly number one.
Barry Wagner literally doing it all.
So if the worry of the AFL old guard was that the past was going to be forgotten in the new players and rules flooding the AFL, we can all rest assured that ESPN is not interested in the past being forgotten.
Wagner, and his shoulders that carried this league for some many years, in so many ways, can hold his head high for all time.
ESPN, well done, good and faithful servant.
Game time
Only after the game can anyone relax.
Just when it looked like the Kansas City Brigade had the game sowed up, with two-minutes and twenty seconds left in the game, the worry of head coach Kevin Porter’s face on fourth and one, with the lead at 41-35 told a tale about this brand of football.
Porter was heard expressing his concern about his team needing to get a first down.
“We gotta be able to get a yard,” said Porter.
And Hoge didn’t miss a thing. “Did you hear Kevin Porter?” said Hoge quoting Poter to Jaworski. .”We; gotta be able to get a yard.”
At this point Hoge and Jaworski make the perfect point about the game of Arena Football. Do you go for it and risk the lead changing in the blink of eye, or do you play it safe?
In Arena Football the score only counts when there is four zeroes on the clock, and on that aspect, only sometimes.
Jaworski and Hoge communicated the intensity of the AFL game as quickly and effectively as a TD can be scored. Kudos for their effort.
The Brigade, like ESPN, Jaworski and Hoge would not disappoint the fans.
And for the stoic Chicago Rush fans watching the broadcast, losing is just an opportunity to fix things. They know more about winning through adversity than any franchise in history. There team has never not made the playoffs.
Like Bobby Sippio on Chicago’s last touchdown, Chicago never gives up.
The center of sports
ESPN and the AFL are together where they belong.
The Arena Football game is an intense and enjoyable spectator event and deserves its place as an amazing league of great athletes.
ESPN has proven to be the best thing to happen to sports in the history of mankind.
The AFL on ESPN is a hit. What should have always been the home for Arena Football has finally been re-built on a solid foundation.
The first game of the season is in the books.
ESPN did what it does best and the AFL kept on being the same excellent game it has always been.
Change and consistency can blend together as one.
In the case of the AFL on ESPN both Arena Football and the center of the sports world connect in perfect harmony.
Tim Ball is a writer in the Chicagoland area. Married and father of three, his opinions on Arena Football reflects the positive aspect of the game as a family event second to none in pro sports.
