That Mark Burnett would deliver a keynote address at an event called the World Congress of Sports should give us all pause.
Burnett is the erudite producer who has parlayed umpteen versions of "Survivor" and more recently "The Apprentice" into boffo TV ratings and scads of dollars for himself and his network partners.
As it happens, Burnett is a sports fan. A huge sports fan.
He grew up in England watching boxing with his dad. His first big success on TV was "Eco-Challenge," a sort of "Survivor" for jocks that put teams of extreme survivalists through unimaginable paces in exotic places.
Now a US citizen, Burnett adores the NBA and finds baseball a stultifying form of "Americanized cricket." He has been so busy with other projects that "Eco-Challenge" didn't happen last year -- more's the pity -- but sports is never completely off his plate. He is working with Sylvester Stallone and NBC on "The Contender," a TV series in which real-life boxers will slug it out for a lot of money. Picture Rocky wedded to "American Idol," minus the less savory aspects of the sweet science, we're told.
Yesterday, in the ballroom of a Four Seasons hotel most sports fans (and sportswriters) can't afford to stay in, Burnett gave one man's view of sports television. Anyone familiar with Burnett's body of work won't be surprised to learn it's a lot like the Roone Arledge/Dick Ebersol vision of the Olympic Games. In a word: storytelling.
"It's all about the depth of character," he said. "If you're invested in whether that man or woman wins the race, you care so much more.
"All that matters," he added, "is that people are entertained."
Burnett spoke of "character" the way we in the newspaper industry wistfully remember the colorful people who used to work in journalism -- the chain-smoking, hard-drinking profaners who've been weeded out in the interests of giving parakeets a more sanitized place to go potty.
Over the top
Mind you, he did not equate these colorful people to athletes who drink to excess or, say, take drugs to enhance performance. Perish the thought. He was a little more vague, using the Los Angeles Lakers' signing of Karl Malone and Gary Payton -- a "stroke of genius," in his words -- as an example of injecting character into a sports franchise, as if Shaq and Kobe and Phil Jackson simply weren't up to the task previously.
"We fans want to see the legends play," Burnett said, apparently oblivious to the reality that legends have to begin somewhere. "Just pure sports is not going to deliver massive ratings. [It's] story, story, story. I am a living example. I now, quite frankly, am reinventing Thursday nights. Who would have believed that I would be pushing off sitcoms on Thursday night with `The Apprentice?'"
After his remarks, Mr. Humility got little argument from a panel whose task was discussing the future of the sports industry. Only Tim Leiweke, brother of Seahawks CEO Tod and a member of the Lakers' board of directors, offered meaningful opposition.
"This team gives us gray hairs," he said of the Lakers. "It's not supposed to be [about] one guy with his own agenda."
This man knows sports
Leiweke wasn't saying if that one guy might be Payton and his recent lamentation over a perceived dearth of playing time. But his point was clear, given that he is president and CEO of Denver billionaire Philip Anschutz's Anschutz Entertainment Group, which includes but is hardly limited to the LA Kings of the NHL, the LA Galaxy of Major League Soccer (not to mention five other MLS franchises), the Staples Center, the new Home Depot Center, the Kodak Theatre and 30 percent of the Lakers and the LA Sparks.
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