Bryant Gumbel disappointed with rookie year on NFL Net
Bryant Gumbel acknowledged Monday that his first season as the NFL Network's play-by-play man did not go as well as he had hoped, and that in the weeks immediately after it ended he was unsure whether he wanted to return in 2007.
"Quite frankly, if you'd have asked me in January was I going to do it again, I didn't know the answer to that,'' he told WatchDog at an NFL Network luncheon in Manhattan that also was attended by analyst Cris Collinsworth and Cowboys owner Jerry Jones.
"I really didn't know the answer to that, because I was disappointed. On the other hand, I did feel that Game 8 was a far cry from Game 1 and I didn't want to walk away from something saying, 'Hey, you know what, I really didn't do it very well.'
"I learned a lot from the first year. I think and fully believe this year will be a lot better.''
The NFL Network's second season of live game coverage will begin Thanksgiving night and include eight games, culminating with the Patriots visiting the Giants Dec. 29 in a potential bid to complete an unbeaten regular season.
Jones spoke at length about the NFL's revamped strategy for battling the cable companies for greater distribution. I'll write about that in the paper as we get closer to Thanksgiving.
That's it for now. Enjoy Butterbean vs. Harry Funmaker on ESPN Classic tonight.
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Comments (6)
The dominant cable systems in the NY area will not budge on NFL Net carriage unless one or both things below happen -
1) NFL Net on a digital sports tier.
2) Cable companies get access to the NFL Sunday Ticket package.
Unless there is legislation, the cable cos. will not budge.
And any local team that has an NFL Net game gets over-the-air coverage, like the Giants will with their end-of-season Pats tussle.
The most fun the NFL Net can be for a tv guy like myself is the rebroadcasts of ancient TV games ... like old Super Bowls beginning with the Jets last great stand [will it be 40 years since the Jets won a league championship???]
Your'e right about points 1 and 2, for now, DuMont. I hate to take sides in this spitting match, but I believe the NFL is less wrong than the cable companies. Sorry.
I've been reading up on this. The Texas and Wisconsin State Legislatures are attempting to pass bills to force the major cable companies to carry the NFL Network. Will it work? Most likely not, but if the companies continue to get political pressure, they might, might cave.
Is there a lot of demand out there to see The NFL Network? I live in football country, we don't have it, I don't hear anyone complaining. I don't. I can listen to those games on local radio.
This season the Orlando Magic yanked almost half their games off of free TV and put them on FSNFlorida (which main cable provider Bright House Networks doesn't carry). Five games into the season. 4 of which are on FSN, nobody seems to care, unlike when YES Network started and Cablevision didn't carry it. It also seems no one in the midwest cares they can't see The Big Ten Network. There's plenty of Big Ten to watch anyway, there's plenty of NBA and there's plenty of NFL. Maybe we have reached the over saturation point of sports on TV?
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