Gone Again?: The Case Of The Absentee Sports Show Host

Most above-average interest sports fans have their favorite sports news personalities. Whether it's guys like ESPN's Stuart Scott, sports talk's Jim Rome or the NY Daily News' Mike Lupica, fans associate with certain people when it comes to hear and discussing the latest follies and happenings between the lines. With a lot of choices out there for sports media these days, it isn't tough to find at least one favorite voice among the crowd.

If lucky, some of these personalities are associated with their own show. Some of my favorites include ESPN's Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon on Pardon the Interruption, ESPN's Mike Greenberg and Mike Golic on the Mike & Mike morning radio show and Glenn Ordway on WEEI's The Big Show, the top-rated sports radio show in Boston.

Lately, I've noticed a trend that can be chalked up to vacation or just plain time-off, but I'm going to ask it anyway: why does it seem like the hosts of these shows are never on their own show?

For the purposes of discussion, I'll focus on the three examples I just mentioned above, even though they are not alone in the wide media landscape. Every day getting ready for work, I flip on the Mike & Mike simulcast on ESPN 2 to hear a little sports talk before I head out. The symmetry between Greenberg (the straight man) and Golic (the goofy ex-jock) is what has made them one of the best on-air pairings in recent memory. They do everything they're supposed to do and then some, even extending them out a bit to do some Arena Football broadcasting, a dedicated version of SportsCenter a few weeks ago and one of the biggest prizes of all, broadcasting one of the Monday Night Football games during the impending season-opening doubleheader.

But recently, it seems like this double-play combo has been on the bench. Golic appeared today for the first time in almost three weeks, but he was met with the less-than-stellar Doug Gottlieb as Greenberg has been off all week. Throughout the summer, this has been a recurring trend as it's become commonplace to see other people man the mike (no pun intended) rathan than the ESPN dynamic duo. While there's never been an explanation for why they're gone so much, I'm not buying the light summer schedule excuse that a friend of mine tried explaining to me recently. I like seeing Mike and Mike, not fill-ins.

Now, take the case of PTI, another ESPN property. Starting in 2001, the show became a leader in the time-segmented format where everything is formatted in easy to digest bits, perfect for the go-go-go culture our society moves toward daily. Wilbon and Tony-K were another great ESPN pairing, using their Washington Post-born friendship to their advantage and replicating the barroom arguments that we get in on a nightly basis. But as fame has found them, so has other opportunities outside the PTI chairs. Tony-K has done a radio show in various forms since 1992 and joined the Monday Night Football team in 2006. This past February, the astute Wilbon joined the NBA Countdown crew as part of ABC"s NBA coverage and makes frequent appearances on ESPN as an analyst. These days, Wilbon or Tony will often video conference in from the road or have guest hosts (Bob Ryan, J.A. Adande and the amazingly grating Dan Le Batard have filled in). In all cases, the steam and drama that ensues from Tony and Michael in the same room evaporates and you have just a plain show again.

Finally, it's become a running on-air joke at the amount of time Ordway takes off, seemingly allergic to Friday afternoons. When The Big O is in the house, the show is just plain better. When he's not there, it's like walking into your favorite neighborhood bar and finding that the annoying new guy is working, not the friendly face that has your favorite beer poured before your butt hits the stool. It should be said while that the rest of "The Big Show" crew does an admirable job in O's absence, there's a reason why he gets paid the big bucks.

For fans like myself, it's damn frustrating to see the shows that became so popular because of the hosts taken down a few notches because they are taking time off. As loyal viewers, we provide the ratings numbers that allow them the lifestyles they enjoy, the dollars that the advertisers pay the stations because we're tuning in and the celebrity status afforded to the hosts because of it all. I guess the question really comes down to what we should expect from the hosts and the networks as the audience. We helped build them up in days when taking time off would mean a potential loss of a position, so why is it acceptable now that they're established? I don't want to sound inhuman, but if we're expected to work every day, why aren't they?

Let's do some math here. If you look at a year as a whole, there are 260 weekdays. If you subtract 20 days out (three weeks vacation and another week for the black hole known as Christmas to New Year's), that leaves 240 days. Add in another 10 days for federal holidays/sick days and you're down to 230 days or 63% of a calendar year.

I don't have any attendance numbers in front of me, but it seems like some of these hosts aren't hitting  close to that. Is 62% too much to ask? If so, what's a realistic number? 60%? 50%? At what point does it become foolish to brand someone's name on a show when they're only there half of the time? I may be overreacting a bit, but if I have to see Gottlieb fill in one more day on Mike & Mike, I'm going to throw my morning coffee at the TV.

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