Was It a Game Or A Beauty Pageant?

This past week Alabama's Crimson Tide rolled the Notre Dame Fighting Irish into a ball of crush shamrocks and sprinkled them across the football field taking the BCS National Championship. Those of you lucky enough to watch the offensive display of A. J. McCarron and his team probably found it a little boring after a while as did the ESPN announcer Brent Musburger as he made comment of one of the camera pans as it made a hasty halt on a screenshot of A.J. McCarrons mother and his girlfriend Katherine Webb, Miss Alabama 2012.

Musburger, who has the natural affinity to open his mouth and spew illogical observations to the viewing masses once again spoke without thinking and this was only in the first quarter of the football game while Alabama was leading 14-0.

Musburgers' video quote.

ESPN took this and ran with it like Alabama was running against Notre Dame. While live Twitter feeds were being made on the game, this was the shot that sent Katherine's Twitter account into the outer reaches of space. Prior to the game her account was around 550 followers. By the end of the game her followers were over 100,000. It was clear that ESPN had more than just a game on their hands as the cameras continually were hovering in Katherine Webb's area. What else could they do to keep the viewers entertained? The BCS Championship was a total blowout and with the prospect of millions of people turning the channel was something ESPN didn't want to happen. Thus, the game turned into the Katherine Webb show.  It was't the fact that Musburger called Katherine a "beautiful woman" that ires me to write this story. It was his comment that followed that could possibly send a message to young boys about the connection of being a star quarterback will get you the beautiful gal. I know it was Musburgers attempt at making sports humor but it was like some of his other on air quotes over the past 40 years he's been announcing. The next day an ESPN spokesman  posted an apology over Musburgers comment.

I've always thought that announcers were a waste of time and their color commentary and background stories were unnecessary. If you really want to be involved in the game, have a live audio feed from the field in which players and coaches are making decisions. As of now this type of involvement is limited, so the announcers can fill in the gaps with any nonsense they feel is applicable to the moment. When people go to games to cheer for their favorite team do they rely on a television announcer to tell them what has just happened? Maybe I don't watch enough sporting events on television to understand the significance of the announcer? But it could be the reason why I don't watch sporting events. Why listen to someone state the obvious. That's why I would rather read about it later in the newspaper to keep the sometimes biased and absurd observations to a minimum.

To end this story, I'll agree with Brent Musburger that Katherine Webb is a beautiful woman....so, does this make me eligible to be an ESPN announcer?