In the fall of 2009, Aaron Solomon, the longtime coordinating producer of ESPN’s Around the Horn, knew his humble sports-debate show had finally reached critical mass. After seven years in the network’s 5 p.m. slot, Around the Horn had earned the distinction of being parodied on 30 Rock, a show with a rich tradition of zany cutaway gags poking fun at the conventions of an increasingly indulgent entertainment industry. “I’m a frequent guest on Sports Shouting,” says Tracy Jordan — cut to a clip of four men, rendered in a quadrant of talking heads, yelling over one another unintelligibly as the chyrons beneath them display patently ridiculous headlines like “Jacksonville residents ‘no longer aware’ of Jaguars.” The bit drove home the idea that sports commentary, a few years removed from the personality-driven talk-radio boom of the 1990s, was becoming even more of a spectacle — the domain of carnival-barking pundits who shouted about the Yankees and the Cowboys with the kind of fiery, self-serious disposition typically reserved for matters of national security.
Read Full Article »
