ON THE DL
Special 100th Episode Extravaganza - Tony and Jaws Lead Off
Episode 100 is here, in the flesh, or in this case, in the computer. This episode is so big, we’ve cut it up into five parts. The DL, in conjunction with washingtonpost.com, was given the opportunity to go behind the scenes with Monday Night Football. These interviews took place throughout the day, and into the night.
Today, we present Parts 1 and 2. Part 3 is an interview with MNF producer Jay Rothman. Part 4 is a sit-down with Suzy Kolber. Part 5 is actually a two-part interview with Mike Tirico. These interviews will be coming in the next few days, but first...
Part 1 is a chat with everyone’s favorite kvetcher, Anthony Irwin Kornheiser. We talk about his return to radio, or lack thereof, and why he’s made that decision. We also talk about the life of doing Monday Night Football and how to balance that with doing a daily radio show in the off-season. Is that balance possible for him? This is Tony, on the record, talking about his future in radio. Pretty exclusive stuff.
“I don’t want to yo-yo. I don’t want to do it five months on and six months off. Or five months on and seven months off, whatever the math is. I don’t want to do that. So if I’m going to do Monday Night Football...if I’m gonna...then I’m not going to do it. I’m not going to do radio until I can do radio forever.
“Right. There is no radio, as long as I’m doing football. But I’ll happily be a guest on anybody else’s radio show whenever they want me. I loved it. I love radio. To do it for a while and stop becomes more painful than not doing it at all.”
I bring up Dan Snyder and we talk about the conflict of interest that would exist if he were to work on radio for the owner of an NFL franchise while still doing Monday Night Football. We also talk about Vinny Cerrato, Michael Kay and the conflict of interests everywhere in radio.
We discuss Tony’s role on Monday Night Football, and if he feels he’s gotten any better at the job. Does he listen to what the critics say? Does he care that whatever he does makes “bloggy news?”
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Part 2 is a sit down with Ron Jaworski. Jaws and I talk about his love of doing Monday Night Football games in Philly, and how exciting it is to do games from home. We also talk about his preparation during the week, from the Matchup Show to all the research and prep it takes for each highlight that may be on the screen for 30 seconds.
We also talk about how he prepares for different games. Does the quality of game – the juice if you will – change his level of preparation.
And while we are breaking news, we talk with Jaws about the future of the AFL. We also talk about the economics of sports. The AFL is on break. The NFL had more layoffs. Is anything recession proof? This interview took place about two hours before the official release from the AFL about their 2009 plans. Jaws shared his thoughts.
“Nothing is recession proof. Not even the ‘almighty National Football League.’ So if you spin that around to the Arena Football League. And by the way we are going to go dark. For how long, I don’t know – a month, three months. We will probably not play this schedule at all.
“But it’s not necessarily about this present economy. It’s about putting a working business plan in place long term. For 22 years, the Arena Football League has been in existence kind of year to year. We have a lot of brilliant people who realize that the model that we have now, business-wise, is broke.”
Great kickoff to the 100th show. Look for more in the coming days.
Link to this:
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Above is the entire show. At the bottom, or by clicking the header, you can link to subscribe to the show.
Below are some highlights from the show, for the ADD afflicted, like me.
CLIPS