ESPN loses with jingoistic tennis coverage

Once upon a time, you could not tell the players without a scoreboard at the ballpark. Nowadays, you cannot watch tennis on ESPN without using the mute button on your remote control.

Unless you make tennis on ESPN sound like the award-winning silent film, "The Artist," ESPN's jingoistic "America versus the world" approach to the sport would render its coverage completely unwatchable.

"Serena Williams is the only American left in the main draw," ESPN told viewers often during its Friday night/Saturday morning presentation of the Australian Open before the mute button was pressed.

As if a player's nationality matters in tennis. It doesn't. It never has. And never will to the vast majority of viewers despite ESPN's attempt to brainwash people.

Tennis is an individualistic sport. Serena Williams does not play for Team USA any more than Rafael Nadal plays for the Spanish Armadas or Roger Federer represents the Swiss Cheeses.

Serena plays for Serena. If she wins the Aussie Open, it is her victory, not a reason for a flag-waving public celebration. A Serena triumph Down Under would not validate the American way of life, whatever that is, any more than a Serena defeat would bring shame to those values Americans hold dear (which in our increasingly divisive political climate is harder than ever to define).

Yet ESPN insists on sabotaging its tennis coverage with constant prattle about how the Americans are doing in a given tournament, even though that is not why tennis fans watch tennis.

Tennis fans love the drama, contrasting styles and prodigious artistry of a Nadal-Federer match. That neither player is American is utterly irrelevant. Always has been.

Unfortunately, ESPN remains tone-deaf to the truth: Tennis will not achieve NFL-type ratings here if such American players as Mardy Fish, Donald Young, Christina McHale and Melanie Oudin (who has done nothing since the 2009 U.S. Open) join Serena in the second week of a major tournament.

Tennis is a niche sport in America. Most sports fans don't watch tennis. But avid fans will watch the Grand Slam tournaments regardless of who wins the events. Why? Because we enjoy tennis. We especially enjoy our tennis with intelligent and insightful commentary that enhances our appreciation of the players involved, their biographies, strategies, strengths and weaknesses.

Alas, intelligent and insightful commentary on ESPN tennis coverage has been in such short supply that the sport's best TV analyst, Mary Carillo, finally got fed up two years ago and left the network.

Carillo wants to talk tennis, which she does now for Tennis Channel and for CBS at the U.S. Open. She does not want to wave pom-poms for American players. She does not want to spend infinitely more time talking about an American teen-ager making her Wimbledon debut than Novak Djokovic trying to repeat as the tournament champion.

Now that Disney-owned ESPN has wrested the TV rights to Wimbledon from NBC, we will no longer be able to hear Carillo's commentary of the tournament during championship weekend. Our loss.

What constitutes an even bigger loss for viewers is the realization that ESPN can substantially outbid other networks for the right to televise marquee tennis events without having any clue as to how to present the sport properly.

So, like many tennis fans, I'll be watching "Breakfast at Wimbledon" this July, ESPN-style--with my oatmeal and fresh fruit on the table, and the audio on mute.

TV or No TV? That is the Question

Having grown up during the television age, I have been genuinely surprised to meet people who say they don’t have a television in their home and don’t want one.

Not anymore.

Not after another weekend of sampling the vulgarity, coarseness and incivility that passes for entertainment on TV.

Indeed, if I was not a sports author and journalist who enjoys watching athletes, I would be accepting offers for my 25-inch set right now.

Channel-surfing last Saturday night while waiting for ESPN’s coverage of Australian Open tennis, I came upon “Harry’s Law,” an NBC series starring Oscar-winner Kathy Bates as a fired corporate lawyer who opens her own practice in a hardscrabble section of Cincinnati.

In this episode, Bates’s character, Harriet (nicknamed “Harry,” hence the title), tells an opposing attorney that a jury would be more inclined to rule for her client instead of his because, “You’re an a**hole.”

The obscenity was uttered so casually, so quickly, there would have been no time to cover the ears of a child who doesn’t deserve such an assault to the ears and senses.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m no prude. I was a huge fan of “The Sopranos” during its six-season run on HBO. It was one of the best-acted, best-written shows in television history.

However, the profanity, nudity and whackings in Tony Soprano’s world were expected.

And HBO is a premium channel, so you know what you’re paying those extra dollars for.

But nobody watching NBC at 8:16pm on a Saturday night should expect to hear one character on a drama series call another “an a**hole.”

Whatever happened to the family hour? Remember when the networks told us the period from 8pm-9pm Mondays through Saturdays and 7pm-9pm on Sundays were reserved for family entertainment?

Has the concept of non-offensive, family-oriented nightly entertainment on over-the-air television become as antiquated as the rabbit-eared antenna?

Do TV network honchos really believe that only vulgarity sells? That only a show with characters saying crude things to each other can be “edgy” and “hip”?

Is that why Kathy Bates is allowed to speak from the gutter in prime time?

Is that why “stinks” has been replaced by “sucks” in commercials and on TV series?

Is that why Fox Sports commentator Terry Bradshaw could say “sc*mbags” on a Sunday afternoon football show earlier this month and face no consequences?

Is that why CBS now presents a prime-time sitcom called “S**t My Dad Says”?

Is this what CBS, NBC, ABC, Fox, WB and UPN think they have to do to compete with the brain-numbing boorishness of shows like “Jersey Shore,” which continues to set ratings records on MTV?

Much of television today resembles a warped game of limbo in which the overriding question is, “How low can you go?”

Low enough to compel many viewers to become far more discerning about what they watch and when—or join the growing ranks of those who use a television only to watch DVDs while ignoring network shows altogether.