The party's over

Monday Night Football (or MNF to many) made it's final appearance this evening (the night after Christmas). It's not really going away, and Al Michaels will still be part of the announcing team, but it's not going to be the same (you could argue that it hasn't been the same since Howard Cosell left more than twenty years ago). I'm going to miss it. I don't know if the new version will have the same pull, like the traffic mitigation it provided. It has been an observable fact that LA traffic is a lot lighter on Monday evenings during the fall with so many people off doing happy hour and watching the game.

Unlike a lot of people, I've actually watched the last few games (including last weeks thrashing of the Packers, which I'll watch a couple more times before wiping). Tonight I tuned in purely for nostalgic purposes.

Despite only seeing it only sporadically in the first few years (and never in the first couple of years), I was listening every Monday right from the start. Kids didn't have TV's then, but we had radios and WFIL/WPVI (Philly's ABC affiliate) broadcast their audio signal on the low end of the FM band. I grew to know Cosell (a bombastic wit) and his foil Don Meredith (a down home charmer) just by listening. And oh, what a pair they made. As much as I liked the breezy (and occasionally intense) interplay between Cosell and Meredith (both of whom were colorful and opinionated), it's never really worked all that well for anyone else in sports television. It was a once in a lifetime combination of chemistry and personality; they were made for one another. The transition between Keith Jackson and Frank Gifford didn't make that much of a difference although Gifford knew the pro game quite well and Jackson had always been (and remained) a popular college announcer.

Oddly, I've been thinking about Meredith a bit lately because I'd finally gotten around to reading North Dallas Forty (I have a rather long to-do list and this had been on it for years). Even more than the late 70's film, the book brings home the point that Seth Maxwell is based on the authors interactions with Dandy Don and others like him. I'd wondered where he had wandered off to after leaving MNF and we got something of an answer. Don's getting old (was there anything but tape on him?) and Frank's voice is getting feeble (based on the half time interview).

Many things we see all the time today were pioneered on MNF.

• Weekly recaps

  Long before the basic excess of ESPN came to be, NFL fans got their updates about the rest of the league via the local Sunday 11 PM news (three minutes at best) and Monday morning paper coverage. And then MNF found a great way to fill some vacant time during the half with Cosell doing a review of all the weeks games with taped highlights and live commentary. It was a major hit. There was nothing else like it available to most of the country.

• Football as entertainment

  ABC had more to do with making NFL football the glamour sport it is today than anyone else. From putting it on during Monday at prime time, to hyping the hell out of it and then dragging in celebrities; they flogged the property for all they could and both parties profited enormously.

  The spectacle of the current Super Bowl has everything to do with the crazy experiment on ABC. In a culture always looking for an excuse to party, MNF turned the game of the week into a slick, glitzy production that had something to offer to everyone. When it came time to host the playoffs and Super Bowl, ABC went completely overboard, leading the other networks to respond in kind. I'm not saying this is a good thing, but pro or con, ABC is largely responsible (the lessons learned in football carried over to sports in general, and specifically to ABC's Olympic coverage).

• Talking about talking

  I assume that even before MNF, broadcasters would arrive in the city a couple days ahead of the game and spend a good deal of time talking to players, coaches, owners, trainers and anyone else that might deign to answer their questions. Cosell and co. (but Cosell more than anyone) started the process of name dropping and free form quotation that is impossible to escape today. Howard was the consummate name dropper and I guess it just rolled over into the broadcast.

Paul Zimmerman doesn't think much of the demise of MNF, rightfully decrying the poor treatment of analysis over the years (even during their serious period). He touts Dan Fouts, who is quite good (but the connection with the doddering Keith Jackson on PAC-10 broadcasts isn't doing him any favors); I'd certainly welcome listening to him on NFL broadcasts again. I completely agree with the notion that ABC was wrong to dump Fouts along with Dennis Miller. Yet Dr. Z is also a student and historian of the game. To dismiss the significance of the ABC monster seems a bit short sighted to me.

However you feel about it, the prime time Monday evening football event is now history. A lot like the big three networks themselves. I'm pretty dubious about the long term health of Sunday night football on NBC, but their ability to shop for better games should help.