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Most golf fans had the same reaction to news of Fox Sports wresting away rights to the U.S. Open from NBC and ESPN.
On the bright side of the Fox-USGA deal, it should end Chris Berman’s golf career.
— John Nicholson (@ByJohnNicholson) August 8, 2013
Wow. Fox Sports to broadcast US Open (and other USGA events) beginning in 2015. Chris Berman, get that resume in ASAP!
— Sam Weinman (@samweinman) August 7, 2013
A nation weeps. RT @fangsbites: Chris Berman on US Open Golf: 1986-2014.
— Mark Nagi (@MarkNagi) August 8, 2013
They have a point. Berman doing golf was like bringing a bull into a china shop that had a baby sleeping in the back room. Now that he’s gone, there will be no more of his bloviating at the top of the broadcast, trying to make one of the most prestigious tournaments in the world into the Chris Berman show. It means no more flooded Twitter timelines of Berman complaints, no more shouting after shots and fewer flawed historical references and mentions of neighboring towns where long drives and errant shots might land.
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But this is a “be careful what you wish for” situations. Why don’t people like Berman doing golf? He’s loud, the sport doesn’t match with his image, he lacks a sense of decorum and he seems more interested in self-promotion than providing crisp, informative coverage. In other words, the same exact problems people have with Fox Sports. Subtlety, nuance and analysis, things golf fans want in coverage, isn’t exactly in Fox’s wheelhouse.
The network does a good job broadcasting football and is acceptable with baseball (though its tendencies for close-ups and fan reaction sometimes make it unwatchable), but Fox is out of its league when airing sports with which its unfamiliar. Remember the NHL debacle? Or how its BCS coverage was all about cuts to the band rather than coverage of the game?
That’s not necessarily Fox’s fault. Putting together a telecast of a sport with which you’re unfamiliar is a difficult proposition. Fox put NFL announcers in the college football booth for those BCS games and — surprise, surprise — guys who spent the entire fall focused on the professional games didn’t know much about the college version.
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Fox doesn’t air golf. Unless it acquires the rights to another PGA tournament in the next 22 months, the 2015 U.S. Open will be its maiden voyage in golf’s big leagues. That’s like giving the keys to the presidential motorcade to a 16-year-old with a learner’s permit. It’s a recipe for failure.
Who will call the Open? It was easy to lure John Madden and Pat Summerall to Fox when the network got NFC rights — there was nowhere else to go. But with CBS still handling a bulk of the PGA schedule (including the Masters and PGA Championship), ESPN holding rights to the British Open and early-round Masters coverage and the Golf Channel being the Golf Channel, what interest will the biggest golf names have in going to a network with one marquee event per year?
It’s not like Fox will have to pull people off the street; money will talk and they should have adequate talent for that first U.S. Open. But who? Will they make a run at Johnny Miller, NBC’s brash lead analyst, even though Miller says he won’t go to Fox? Or will the network fall back into its trend of repurposing talent in other sports?
That’s the scariest thought of all. If you thought Chris Berman was loud and abrasive, just wait until Gus Johnson sits in the 18th tower calling a Phil Mickelson putt for birdie.
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