NBC fires Bud Collins

Oh, Vitale won't be fired. He'll die courtside, probably.

And neither should have Collins.

NBC Sports has been, for some time, a different sports animal. Who knows what they're thinking half the time, but it's long way from 1988, when it had the full slate of NFL, the national championship football game (which I believe it had 6 years in a row or something) Kirk Gibson's homer and the FloJo Olympics. I mean, who's the star of the network anyway? Johnny fuckin Miller. He shows up five times a year.

 

(I would say I didn't, but I was a little young to be following the group's saga live ... )

Sure, Bud Collins was over the top. Big time. But if he flew to England, then found out he was fired - and no one told him in person - NBC deserves every bit of what should be a PR nightmare. That was my point ... that the Peacock should pay for this.

Sadly, it won't. Like hockey - and like Genesis - the hardcore viewers and fans o the sport would tune in even if clowns were producing and announcing the broadcast.

 

Peter King is the star of NBC Sports. Peter told us himself.

 

Well, we do tune in to watch the sport, you know.

Let's not forget that by mocking the "lemmings" who would watch regardless.

Of course we'll watch regardless. It's the sport we care about, not who's announcing it.

If an announcer comes along every so often to complement our enjoyment, so much the better.

There's no sense trying to compartmentalize it by singling out hockey fans or Genesis fans. The same holds true for any fan of any sport . . . unless perhaps O.J. Simpson was back on Monday Night Football.

 

Most NBC viewers will never know just how gracious Bud Collins is, in the face of so many tragedies he's experienced in his own life.

The least the network could have done was extend Bud the opportunity of a dignified exit to match the decency the man extended to the sport for so many years.

 

Dignified? NBC?

No chance.

 

Unfortunately, they've marginalized him for a long time. Love him or hate him, he was part of Breakfast at Wimbledon.

Count me among the lovers. As a young pup doing my first big tennis event at the U.S. Open in about 93-94, I ended up with a seat right next to him up in the old Louis Armstrong press box.

I used to answer his phone and take messages, just to see who was calling. He got some calls, let me tell ya. Allowed me to use his line in exchange.

Can't even tell you how gracious he was. He remembered my name the first time, the second time, and remembered it every single time I've seen him since, however sporadically, in the years since then.

And I happen to love his writing style. Just paints a great picture, very distinct and gives you a great colourful flavour of the goings on.

I imagine Tennis Channel will go in; they're getting bigger and anything's better than Chanda Rubin, et al. He can do some things there.

Why do guys like Collins get the axe and asshats like Chris Fowler keep getting more air time, I'll never understand.

 

One of the highlights of my career (may something about my career)... sometime in the late 80s, I was covering the Hall of Fame Tournament in Newport, RI and decided to play in the 'media tournament.'

Bud was also playing... and rotated among the rest of us for doubles. How cool it was to hear Bud doing play-by-play of the match we were playing and calling out our names as if we were McEnroe or Connors or Borg!

Add to that his extraordinary graciousness and I find what NBC has done to be reprehensible.

 

Nobody has more knowledge of the history of tennis than Bud. Any reporter covering tennis knew that for a sense of perspective on the sport, Bud was the man. The first time I met him, I thought it his tv thing was an act, but that really is Bud. People also forget that he used to cover boxing. It's a shame the way NBC did this, but the ruthlessness doesn't surprise me one bit.

 

Sammi, was Bud playing barefoot on the grass courts at Newport? He used to do that on the grass courts at Forest Hills.

 

Actually, we had to move inside because of rain. Methinks he wore the tenny shoes.

 

Wow. This blows my mind. To me, he is tennis on TV.

I've never met Collins and I really don't give a shit about tennis, but I've never heard a bad word about him. I'd pay him the best compliment I think you can pay an announcer, he compelled me to watch something I wouldn't have been compelled to watch otherwise.

With that criteria, I put him in my own select group with guys like Peter Alliss (I thought he was fascinating when he did the British Open for ABC), Dave Johnson (I know he wasn't an analyst, but I miss his Derby calls), Gary Thorne (NHL), Marty Brennaman (Reds radio broadcasts) and I'm probably leaving one or two out.

I'd watch F1 anyway, but the Speed announcing team of Bob Varsha, David Hobbs and Steve Matchett (my opinion, the best announcing team on sports TV right now) are in the same vein.