• ‘Monday Afternoon Football?’ ‘Monday Afternoon Football?’ By Duane Shimogawa Jr. – The Garden Island So the big news is out and starting in 2006, “Monday Night Foot-ball” as we know it will turn cable. ESPN will be the new
• ‘Monday Afternoon Football?’
‘Monday Afternoon Football?’
By Duane Shimogawa Jr. – The Garden Island
So the big news is out and starting in 2006, “Monday Night Foot-ball” as we know it will turn cable.
ESPN will be the new home of Monday Night Foot-ball.
Also getting back into the mix is NBC, which will take over Sunday night telecasts from ESPN.
NBC will start its Sunday broadcasts with a pregame show at 7 p.m. eastern; games will begin at 8:15.
In the last seven weeks, the league will be able to shift afternoon games to prime time to ensure more meaningful games are shown on national TV.
Only CBS’s “60 Minutes” stood longer on the prime time network podium.
From the days of Howard Cosell, to Al, Frank, and Dan, to Hank Williams, to Dennis Miller, and now John Madden and Al Michaels, “Monday Night Football” is in R.I.P. mode!
So how does this affect us? Well for one, there will be no more, “close your eyes time,” because we will see the games live in the afternoon, instead of seeing it in primetime.
This means bad news for local bars, who have satellite dishes. It’s also an added incentive for people to not get a satellite dish, because now you’ll see Monday Night Football for free right at your own home.
For 35 years, Monday Night Football has been a fixture for most of us at around 6:30 p.m. Hawai‘i time.
Although we know that the game isn’t live, it still brings the family together. It’s an extra excuse to get together with friends on a Monday night.
But what happens now? Will we now call it “Monday Afternoon Football?”
It’s going to be a tough change, but I don’t think it’ll lose any viewers.
“Monday Night Football” is definitely one of my favorite shows, besides ESPN’s Sportscenter, but it’ll be a little harder for me to watch the games, since the contests will now begin at around 3:30 p.m. Hawai‘i time.
Most of us are at work during those times and for employers, this might mean that your employees might be taking their lunch breaks later in the day — let’s say about 3:30 p.m.
On the other hand, we also don’t have the option of looking in to cable networks such has ESPN for the “Monday Night Football” score.
However, there were a handful of times when I accidentally flipped through the channels and came across the final score of the Monday football game, which made the excitement of watching the game disappear.
Lori Ross, an eastside resident was also in dismay when she read about the news in Tuesday’s edition of The Garden Island.
“Well, it’s sort of a tradition in our home; we usually have a bachelor come over and I make some corn bread and other tasty treats; it’s just not going to be the same,” Ross said.
But we do still have one season before the switch takes place, so if you really enjoyed the “Monday Night Football” format for the past 35 years, then you’ll have to make the most of the upcoming season.
As a high schooler, I remembered working my schedule around “Monday Night Football.”
I even skipped trick-or-treating as a youngster, to watch the game.
But when it falls on Halloween, the only thing to do will be to sort through candy and not through the instant replay of Joe Montana’s touchdown pass to Jerry Rice.
The pass from ABC to ESPN and the all-important time change will have an affect on us, but just like anything in life: we’ll get used to it!
