[NU Sports] annoying fans and PA announcers

[Mike Nolan]

> The role of the Football PA announcer has really changed lately. There's an
> article that I linked a few weeks back, about the 4 other people it takes to
> coordinate the activities of the PA announcer at one of the Big 10 statia, with
> spotters, and stats and getting the paid for announcements done on time, a far
> cry from the old "one man and an organist" PA crew at most major league games in
> the past. I often thought it would be fun to announce just one NU game, to say
> I'd done it, but I'm not sure you can just jump in and do that anymore.

A friend of mine teaches a course at Nebraska for sports journalism.  That's
become a very difficult field, for the reasons Roy cites.  Everybody thinks
they can do play-by-play well, few can, even among those doing it for-real.  

And of course, everybody trying to break into the field wants to be the next
Brent Musberger or Al Michaels, and that's pretty select company.  (Even
those who don't like Brent have to admit he does the job superbly.  Al 
Michaels could broadcast the phone book and make it seem dramatic, though 
IMHO he's slipping in recent years, too much Monday Night Football?) 

I've also seen the commercial log sheet for a typical Nebraska game, it takes 
a real motor-mouth at the mike to get in anything other than promos these days.

The reason for all those promos is the multi-million dollar rights fee
that is associated with a major football school's media contract, though I
have my suspicions that Northwestern gets a lot less than that from WGN,
part of the problem with being in one of the top media markets in the country
and not being a 'draw' either in the stadium or on the airwaves.
--
Mike Nolan