Dreamin'
Thoughts on the recently concluded Dream Job, ESPN’s entry into the reality-show world where 12 contestants competed to become a SportsCenter anchor:
- I’ve been saying for two weeks something similar to what Kit said tonight: that the last six finalists were all nearly certain to get jobs in the field. Think about it: the finalists have all essentially been through a month-long ESPN boot camp of sorts.
- The weakest parts of the show were the non-job-related events — particularly the stupid little games in the early rounds. The quiz segments could have been punched up a little bit too — they did a good job with that in the Mike-vs-Aaron final.
- I voted to cut Mike, because Aaron had better sports knowledge, but it was basically an even competition after Maggie and Zach were punted.
- Speaking of Zach, ESPN had better hope that there was a non-compete clause in his Dream Job appearance contract, because I expect Fox Sports Net to be lighting up his cell phone as I’m typing this. He was a little too edgy for ESPN, but Murdoch’s boys have no problem with that kind of thing.
- Shocker of the day: Maggie holding her own against Tony Kornheiser in PTI.
- Two things probably did Aaron in: his head-on-a-hinge Braves-Cards lead when the teleprompter got pulled versus Mike’s strong April-19 pull on Yankees-Red Sox, and that he wasn’t quite as strong in PTI as Mike.
The overwhelming impression I got from the show was just how hard a job national-scale sports anchoring really is. I had a bit of experience with live TV in my BoB days, playing for Governor’s School on WCVE. Quick fact recall in that situation wasn’t that hard — you had a locked-in format with very little off-the-cuff commentary required. But the required skillset is entirely different on SportsCenter, with barely-controlled chaos all around you and the necessity of original improv from the “shot sheet.” Most of America’s 18-34 male population has probably sat in a dorm room or on a bar stool, watched the show, and thought “yeah, I could do that” — what Dream Job reinforced for me is that no, I couldn’t do that.
Mike’s a worthy champ, but I expect we’ll see Aaron again soon.
28 March 2004 / 4 Comments / Tags: media