Thursday, October 30th, 2003

Subject: Budweiser Not Seat Time: 2:37 am.

I love ESPN, but The Budweiser Hot Seat is taken way too seriously on Sportscenter. Dan Patrick or Steve Levy sit in the darkened room with the monitors behind them with flickering fiery graphics to imply some sort of dramatic urgency and importance, but what is so important about it?... Perhaps the big bucks Budweiser pays for the endorsement, thats a serious issue, but the actual content of the questioning sessions is more of an exercise in futility. The whole interview is done in a slow and plodding method, for the most seriousness and drama. The fact that some of the players on the hot seat are via satelittle and the feed has a short delay, may be more than an incidental drawback from the technology, but more of a deliberate attempt to slow down the pace. Sure the interviewer asks the tough questions, hanging each phrase for utmost contrast, covering all aspects hoping for a good soundbite, something juicy that I can drool over later, as I have an argument with Kornheiser and Wilbon through the tv, but how often do the players on the "hot seat" ever offer up anything worth while. Most players are smarter than that, they don't want to be forced into saying anything that could later come back to hurt them. However, of course there are those players who get into the hot seat who play ball, are forthright and who say the extraordinary, but most of them are the Warren Sapps, Charles Barkleys or the Jeremy Shockeys of the sports world... Does getting controversial info out of these loudmouths require the stoicism employed? These guys would gladly give you their opinion every day of the week, on the record or off, in a relaxed atmosphere or under the bright lights of the police interrogation room...but go ahead, play it up like this stage makes it mean more. What makes this forum grander than any other interview? Nothing. The fact that the segment is promo-ed by invoking the serious ramifications of what could happen once the player finds themselves in this uncomfortable environment, is most likely the biggest reason no huge scoop ever gets reported. Any player in their right mind, who agrees to partake in this segment, that has an opinion that they don't want to get out, will be more careful not to 'spill the beans' after the hot seat has been hyped to this extent. They will be more careful to answer each topic with a high level of delicacy, because they know the point of the hot seat is for the interviewer to try, more than ever to break the big news. A great deal of controversial interviews in sports occur after a big win, a big loss, in joking, or when a player is caught off-guard. Player Emotion and Comfort can easily breed comments that can get Woody Paige and Max Kellerman in a frenzy. The Budweiser Hot Seat does not invoke emotion or let the players get comfortable, and rarely gets the quote of the week. And you have to love how the only break in the atmosphere is when Dan Patrick will get angry and argue for the player to answer a question that the player is dancing around...Or when Steve Levy, in the same serious, almost angry but stone faced tone acknowledges the fact that the player who is dodging an issue, is smarter than him, and not going to incriminate themselves. Of course the more often you make players sit down in front of the spanish inquisition, and berade them with tricky questions, the better chance someone slips up, and says something Bob Ryan or Mike Lupica can write about in tommorow's sports section...and the more you hype up the segment on Sportscenter, the more we think maybe something might be said that is worth watching....either way, hopefully someone falls for a trick.

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