Tampa Bay Times columnist Tom Jones looks back at the best and worst from a weekend of televised sports.
Worst programming
The Rays lost their 11th game in a row Sunday in Baltimore. They are 12 games below .500. They are in last place in the American League East.
Add that all up and you get a sum that's even worse than all of its parts. Suddenly, you have franchise that has sunk so low you wonder if local fans are going to abandon them.
The Rays are about to become irrelevant and there's not much worse that can be said about a team.
Rays attendance has always been a concern, even during the good times. But one thing the Rays have always pointed to when talking about local support has been solid TV and radio ratings. While fans might not show up to the games, they do pay attention. The TV numbers, in particular, back that up.
Now, however, the Rays are in danger of falling off the local landscape.
You can dress up the broadcast all you want. But you can bet that fans aren't going to tune in just to hear the excellent announcing of Dewayne Staats and Brian Anderson. If the games they are calling are lousy, fans will find something else to do.
Meantime, the studio team of Rich Hollenberg and Orestes Destrade has had an impossible job the past week. They have had to balance being honest and critical, while trying to find enough silver linings to keep fans interested. They've done well.
But the Rays are doing them no favors. And, soon (if it hasn't happened already), fans will simply tune out.
Worst call
Saturday night's boxing match between Clearwater's Keith Thurman and Shawn Porter on CBS was a terrific bout, but became practically unwatchable because of the call by lead announcer Mauro Ranallo.
There is one golden rule in broadcasting: The announcer should never make himself bigger than the event he is covering. And Ranallo broke that rule Saturday night. His over-the-top style with corny puns and forced metaphors completely overshadowed the fight. When you have a fight this good, all the announcer has to do is get out of the way. Instead, with this style that would be more suited to professional wrestling, Ranallo trampled all over it.
He also stepped over the best part of CBS's announcing team. Al Bernstein is one of the best in the business and Paulie Malignaggi did a good job Saturday. But, too often, Ranallo cut them off to describe something that viewers could see for themselves.
Thurman defended his WBA welterweight title with a close unanimous decision. If Thurman decides to watch the fight in the next day or so, here's some advice: Turn the sound down.
Best studio team
So much of the time, it takes outlandish announcing or unusual behavior for us to recognize outstanding work in broadcasting. And one area that really gets overlooked is studio shows.
But if you have been watching ESPN's coverage of the Euro 2016 soccer, you've witnessed some of the best studio work that you're going to find on television.
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Explore all your optionsTime for Bob Ley, left, to get a tip of the cap. He doesn't have catch phrases. He doesn't yell. He doesn't say crazy things.
He simply does a first-rate, professional, classy job. That's what he has done on ESPN since he joined the network three days after it launched in 1979. The network's longest-tenured on-air employee continues to be its most respected.
His work on the Euro studio show has been superb. He sets the tone for the conversation, while analysts Roberto Martinez and Kasey Keller have offered pertinent and interesting commentary.
Whether you're an avid or casual soccer fan, Ley leads a studio show that has been as enjoyable as it has been informative.
Worst soccer coverage
Fox Sports 1's soccer coverage of Copa America has been less impressive than ESPN's coverage of Euro 2016 because of heavy homerism. You could understand the network trying to drum up interest so American fans would watch, but the network's pro-American slant was too much.
As the web site, Awful Announcing, pointed out, when the network's slew of broadcasters made predictions for the Argentina-USA semifinal, all but one picked the USA. What's wrong with that, you ask? Come on, Argentina is in a different class than the United States and it showed with its dominating 4-0 victory.
Then afterward, everyone acted like it was no surprise because Argentina is so good.
Well, which is it? The USA was supposed to win or it's no surprise it got crushed?
To make matters worse, you have to search hard to find anyone at the network who will criticize USA soccer, even when it gets blasted like it did against Argentina.
Worst fight
Rubbin' paint? For some, nothing makes auto racing more fun than a couple of good ol' boys rubbin' paint. Except for throwing fists.
That's what happened Saturday night on Fox Sports 1 when Spencer Gallagher and John Wes Townley rubbed paint and then threw fists during the NASCAR truck race.
Check that. They didn't throw fists as much as hug and dance. The fight was so bad that no one even bothered to break it up. They danced around for a few moments, tired themselves out and then as soon as someone approached them, they stopped.
Certainly, one shouldn't condone fighting. But, yeesh, if you're going to fight then fight.
Most dated
I've always been a big fan of ESPN's Sports Reporters on Sunday morning. The long-running show stood out from the other debate shows because it had respected voices who didn't feel the need to scream to make their points. The show is a smart conversation as opposed to a bitter debate, which is the backbone for so many of the other sports-talk shows you see on television.
But Sunday pointed out the one flaw in the show: It's often too dated with its topics. Because it airs only once a week, it feels the need to recap everything that happened since the last show.
On Sunday, that meant talking, in depth and in the first segment, about the NBA Finals, which were a week old. Other topics? Golf's U.S. Open, which was a week old. The first round of the NBA draft, which had happened three days earlier. And the Derrick Rose trade to the Knicks, which had happened four days earlier.
It's still an intelligent show that deserves your attention, but shows such as Sunday, when the topics are so old, occasionally make it hard to watch.
Most interesting, uh, sport
Just as another Rays game was getting out of hand, I reached for the remote Sunday afternoon, looking for another sporting event to catch my interest.
I found it, though it wasn't really an actual sporting event. But it is part of the new wave of sports broadcasting.
I discovered myself mesmerized by the NBA 2K16 championship. That's right. I was watching guys playing a video game.
Laugh all you want. This is big business. ESPN is making a big push to cover electronic-systems sports, or eSports.
It's never going to replace actual sports, but I must admit I found myself mildly entertained for half an hour or so. And you can bet that generations younger than me are even more interested in such coverage.
Three things that popped into my head
1 Which happens first: Ben Bishop gets traded, Steven Stamkos signs with another team or Kevin Cash gets fired?
2 If you watched the Rays over the weekend, one question surely kept popping up in your head: When does Bucs camp start?
3 It was Sunday at Congressional. Final round. And Tiger Woods was wearing red. But he wasn't playing the tournament he hosts. He was in the booth. And watching him talk instead of playing just seemed … weird.
tom jones' two cents