Comcastic crappola

Comcast Sportsnet Bay Area had a good thing going.

With a glob of corporate money flowing from Philly, devour the market and embed the brand, bring in mostly out-of-town, cheaper, younger, softies and with help from the local sports franchises, dominate.

As a pure resource of providing televised cable content courtesy your beloved SF Giants, Oakland A's, Golden State Warriors and SJ Sharks, Comcast and its production does a decent job. Mostly all the announcers, save for the proverbial few mutants down on the field or in the stands, (think "Amy G") are good and the game(s) flow. It helps, too, that the dominant team, (Giants) wins a World Series.

Its the product away from the yard and off the court that is lousy.

Comcast' Bay Area programming, (and I use that word lightly) is chock full of nothing. The word, "crap" comes to mind. We've lauded them for their occasional bits of genuinely good content when they delve into documentaries about Glenn Burke and Rickey Henderson. Terrific. If only the rest of their output were as glowing.

Not.

Their version of "SportsCenter", "Sportsnet Central" is out of date and mostly vanilla. A hodgepodge of highlights thrown about with listless, dull and wonder bread anchors providing the narration. We don't need nor want a Stuart Scott, but at least with Scott, you get a pulse. Comcast' local tonsils don't have an audio-visual there there. Its just like every other anemic sports highlight show, only duller and more antiseptic. Crappola.

Then there's "Chronicle Live", the nightly chat show hosted by Greg Papa. A show that is long on local sports minutiae and short on any real, tangible, insightful programming. Then again, you want make sure to please the clients, (Giants, W's, A's, Raiders, 49ers) and not rock the boat. And that's the problem with "CL."

The show is listless. Nobody says anything. And the only time anybody, (mostly sportswriters and a few TV/radio people) say anything, it is merely placed in their respective column. When's the last time anybody out there said, "Hey, did you see CL? Did you hear what Ratto said about the Giants?"Which is precisely my point. "CL" is for the clients. Nothing more than a PR show that nobody watches other than those in the local sports media and a few schlums that stuck around after a Giants' post-game show.

"CL" doesn't want, apparently, to embrace the "Sports Reporters" model on ESPN, which is unfortunate because as tiresome and dull as ESPN has become, its "Outside the Lines", "Sports Reporters" and other non-traditional content shows are interesting to watch and have made for compelling cable viewing.

Comcast has the cash and resources available to bring more invigorating, enlightening and entertaining programming to Bay Area audiences. They want you to believe they're a big-time outfit and a big-time show, but they really haven't captivated nor enlightened anyone. They're more of a Kohl's market, but they want you to think of them as Nieman Marcus.

They got a huge assist with the Giants winning the World Series and that alone provided numbers that satisfied the home office back in Philly. Without the Giants, they'd be half-burnt toast. After that, it gets bare bones.

Comcast has a slew of post-game analysts on each respective sport, but even they don't "Move-the-meter" by any stretch of the imagination. I like Bip Roberts a lot, personally and otherwise, but Bip, an ex-player who certainly knows the game of baseball doesn't make you stop and think and say, "we'll damn, I didn't know that!"

Matt Steinmetz is a terrific talent and knows his NBA basketball--ditto Bret Hedican on the NHL and Sharks, but they're in the minority. And Steinmetz, who can and should say a lot more because he's on his game and possesses real insight, has been noticeably muted. Who knows, maybe he dared to be noticed.

And Jaymee Sire? I'm not a misogynist, so don't even go there, but Ms. Sire was blessed to be born with great beauty and knows how to look into the camera. For that, she's a Comcast "reporter." It could have been worse: at least she's not an "Insider."

There are those who will deride me for, dare this!, committing the un-American act of dismissing this local cable behemoth. They're rail me because they think that since I wrote an equally critical piece on Comcast that I was subsequently jettisoned off "CL", I have an axe to grind.

Really? Full Disclosure: In fact, I appeared on "CL" last December, (probably for the last time) and in April, 2010, I produced a Jim Brown event and fundraiser that "CL" and Comcast televised. I don't think that's the issue. In fact, some would say its idiotic that I'd write a massively negative piece about this organization. And they'd be right.

But then again, that's not me. I owe it to the base and my readers and have never backed down no matter the consequences. Not now, nor in the future. That would not be me. And that would be crappola in and of itself.

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