Background Story (courtesy Yahoo! Sports)
This post originally appeared on the Kyle Cooper: Sportscaster Facebook page, 13 October 2014.
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Oh, well. Mike Goldberg can always serve as a cautionary tale.
As a Sunday Ticket viewer, I run the clicker pretty hard. The Packer game is priority, of course, but during commercials my thumb breaks a sweat as I zip around to check on the other potentially promising matchups. Even though I pay particular attention to the NFC North, there were a lot of good games elsewhere this past Sunday, and Vikings-Lions got dull. So I didn't see enough of the broadcast to give it a completely fair perspective.
But many other people saw and heard enough. When the criticism is that strong and widespread it's a solid indication Goldberg and crew pooped all over the carpet.
As a sportscaster, I'm pissed. To have the opportunity to do network play-by-play of an NFL game, screw it up so royally and act so d*ckishly afterward is an insult. It's an insult to the profession, the sportscasters around the NFL (and elsewhere) that pour hours of hard work into each week to do their best possible broadcast, the fans and the teams.
Let's see how he does next week. Goldberg must be feeling a very peculiar pressure; he screwed the pooch on a national stage, followed that up by lashing out at his growing base of critics, and now he gets to go back and try it all over again.
It's fair to say he'll be scrutinized.
Thing is, though, that if it's merely a serviceable NFL broadcast, Goldberg gets off the hook -- but only if he comes across as pleasant and competent. If he portrays any kind of attitude or makes as many mistakes as last week, his career-ending firestorm will be well deserved.
The cautionary tale here is in two parts. One, always make sure to be prepared before you go on the air. Always. Two, when you tweet in anger, you're going to have a bad time. Twitter can morph from "social media" to "carnival shooting gallery" in a nanosecond, and you never want to make yourself a bigger target. Never.
UPDATE: Goldberg never got the chance for Vikings-Bills play-by-play, despite a public mea culpa. Tim Brando got the gig, and got a good game to call. Good thing, too -- Goldberg might have attributed the winning pass to Brian Brohm, J.P. Losman or Rob Johnson. Or, for a retro flavor, Joe Ferguson or Dennis Shaw.
This post originally appeared on the Kyle Cooper: Sportscaster Facebook page, 13 October 2014.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Oh, well. Mike Goldberg can always serve as a cautionary tale.
As a Sunday Ticket viewer, I run the clicker pretty hard. The Packer game is priority, of course, but during commercials my thumb breaks a sweat as I zip around to check on the other potentially promising matchups. Even though I pay particular attention to the NFC North, there were a lot of good games elsewhere this past Sunday, and Vikings-Lions got dull. So I didn't see enough of the broadcast to give it a completely fair perspective.
But many other people saw and heard enough. When the criticism is that strong and widespread it's a solid indication Goldberg and crew pooped all over the carpet.
As a sportscaster, I'm pissed. To have the opportunity to do network play-by-play of an NFL game, screw it up so royally and act so d*ckishly afterward is an insult. It's an insult to the profession, the sportscasters around the NFL (and elsewhere) that pour hours of hard work into each week to do their best possible broadcast, the fans and the teams.
Let's see how he does next week. Goldberg must be feeling a very peculiar pressure; he screwed the pooch on a national stage, followed that up by lashing out at his growing base of critics, and now he gets to go back and try it all over again.
It's fair to say he'll be scrutinized.
Thing is, though, that if it's merely a serviceable NFL broadcast, Goldberg gets off the hook -- but only if he comes across as pleasant and competent. If he portrays any kind of attitude or makes as many mistakes as last week, his career-ending firestorm will be well deserved.
The cautionary tale here is in two parts. One, always make sure to be prepared before you go on the air. Always. Two, when you tweet in anger, you're going to have a bad time. Twitter can morph from "social media" to "carnival shooting gallery" in a nanosecond, and you never want to make yourself a bigger target. Never.
UPDATE: Goldberg never got the chance for Vikings-Bills play-by-play, despite a public mea culpa. Tim Brando got the gig, and got a good game to call. Good thing, too -- Goldberg might have attributed the winning pass to Brian Brohm, J.P. Losman or Rob Johnson. Or, for a retro flavor, Joe Ferguson or Dennis Shaw.
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