Further evidence that it's Keith Olbermann's world and we're lucky to have gravity keeping us grounded in it, NBC Sports announced today that the well-versed brilliant sports mind who has recently ventured successfully into Bill O'Reilly bashing disguised as political commentary will infiltrate the "Football Night In America" studio show this fall, sharing a desk with fellow egos Bob Costas, Cris Collinsworth, Jerome Bettis, Tiki Barber ... who else are we forgetting? ... Peter King? ... so that his opinions about all that goes on in the NFL will allow us all to sleep better before the work week begins.
Since the Angels-Red Sox broadcast Monday morning on 710-AM prevented Los Angeles listeners from hearing Olbermann's explanation of how this all went down on the ESPN Radio syndicated Dan Patrick show, KO said in a media conference call earlier Monday that it was a matter of him renewing his NBC News contract to continue his MSNBC "Countdown" show that led Jeff Zucker, the president and CEO of NBC Universal, to suggest to NBC Sports czar Dick Ebersol that throwing Olbermann a sports bone might be a good thing to add to the fine print.
Since the thought was not to make Olbermann travel to take away from his nighly MSNBC show, or his hour-long daily visits with Patrick, the weekend desk job based in New York seemed to be the best fit, said Ebersol.
"It wasn't a question of whether or not he was knowledgeable about football," said Ebersol, "but, most importantly to me, the studio world of sports has had very few wildly successful practitioners and, in Keith's case, it's more than being successful, in many ways he and Dan Patrick were pioneers in the 'SportsCenter 'world. More than anything else, I love how opinionated he is. I'm sure there will be some phone calls from the league on Monday morning from occasional opinions that will come up now on the show."
Olbermann, whose emergence in the sports news business included stints at L.A.'s KTLA Channel 5 and KCBS Channel 2 before he left for ESPN in 1992 to do five years of "SportsCenter," says he doesn't anticipate this new job to affect his other media positions, except maybe an occasional day off on a Friday from the Patrick radio show during the NFL season.
"We haven't discussed parameters," said Olbermann, when asked if he may have a problem saying things pro-NFL, "but I think they are naturally there. What we are doing on 'Football Night in America' is football. And whereas occasionally societal issues cross back and forth, very rarely have I found them to politically oriented. So if you are thinking that this is going to be some sort of venue for promoting or criticizing a political viewpoint, I don't see it happening. I am not going in there with any kind of agenda. I have been a sportscaster much longer than I have been a commentator and I think I know the difference of when to do that stuff and when not to...There will be plenty of opinions about football."
For the record, Olbermann has worked for NBC Sports in the past. In 1997, after leaving ESPN, he was anchor on the World Series and Major League Baseball's All-Star Game, and contributing to pre-game coverage of the Super Bowl.