New BWW Series: TRANSLATING SPORTS: Sports Headlines for Theater Fans

Growing up, I had three passions, theatre, sports, and pro wrestling; today, in my inaugural "Translating Sports" column, I am going to discuss all three. You can either look at this as the culmination of all of my childhood hopes and dreams, or as proof that my tastes and maturity level has not progressed since I was 12-years-old. I will let you decide after reading the column.

First thing's first, what is "Translating Sports?" In this space each week (or thereabouts), I will discuss sports headlines in a way that non-sports fans can understand. The goal is to provide you with enough information and context so that your eyes don't completely glaze over and roll into the back of your head when friends or coworkers start discussing the increased use of instant replay in baseball, the negative impact of helmet-to-helmet hits in football, or Lebron's receding hairline. While there are many types of people who have no interest in sports (Dungeons and Dragons Grand Wizards, Renaissance Fair beer wenches, guys who obsess over their Linux operating system), this is a Broadway World site, so I will try to cater my allusions to the theatre dorks amongst us.

And yes, perceptive Twitter users might recall that Tony and Grammy winner Lin-Manuel Miranda (@lin_manuel) occassionally tweets theatre-sports comparisons when he is not otherwise engaged in creating awesomeness, but just because Lin did it first (and better) doesn't mean that I'm not allowed to disscuss sports and theatre at the same time. No one accused Arthur Laurents, Leonard Bernstein, and Stephen Sondheim of 'ripping off' Shakespeare when they wrote WEST SIDE STORY. So if it makes you feel better, you can just consider this an adaptation of the same source material.

Now that we've got the intros out of the way, we will be discussing two major issues in the sports world this week. The first is the August 17th launches of two new sports broadcasting endeavors that look to take a bite out of ESPN's on-air dominance. ESPN, which not so humbly refers to itself as "The Worldwide Leader," is such a behemoth that there hasn't been an attempt to dethrone them in over a decade.

The, thusfar, more successful of the two launches saw NBC, and its cable NBC Sports Network, become America's home for soccer's English Premiere League (which, thanks to a $187 million product placement deal, is also known as Barclays Premiere League). Now you might think, "This is 'Merica, we like real football here, why would we watch that sissy Euro-football?"

Well, I have five reasons for theatre people to watch soccer:
1) Soccer fans love coordinated chants and songs. Right up our alley, right?
2) Listening to the entirely British announcing teams, led by the fantastic Rebecca Lowe, will give you plenty of opportunities to practice your various British dialects. From Shakespeare to OLIVER! all theatre people think that they can do perfect British accents.
3) Theatre people tend to be outsiders, we tend to look for ways to stand out in a crowd; whether it is with goth makeup, or bursting into song in the most inappropriate times and places. And frankly, soccer is the black trenchcoat of American sports, so liking it just kind of feels right.
4) Despite our insatiable need to have people staring at us, theatre people are also debilitatingly and incurably self-conscious. Therefore, watching the EPL will allow us to fit in with the estimated 4.7 billion worldwide viewers the league has every year.
5) Finally, British soccer fans wear scarves, colorful scarves. And theatre people love scarves, right Julia Houston?

One final bit of soccer advice, if you are watching a game with other people, and the opposing team scores, just yell, "He was offsides!" 90% of people have no real idea how that rule works anyway.

The second broadcasting story of the past week was the launch of Fox Sports 1, Rupert Murdoch's answer to the mammoth ESPN. Think about it this way, ESPN is the Shuberts, Jujamcyn, and Nederlanders combined. All other cable sports networks are fighting for the Circle in the Square, Foxwoods, and New Amsterdam scraps. ESPN so dominates that market that previous attempts to compete have either been quickly abandoned, or relegated to niche organizations.

FS1 is attempting to appeal to a younger audience, promising a "fun" approach to sports. The two most hyped shows on the new network are the Regis Philbin (yes, that Regis Philbin) led Crowd Goes Wild and SPORTSCENTER-lite FOX SPORTS LIVE. Now, I love me some Regis, but I really thought that a nearly 82-year-old man would feel very uncomfortable on a panel with five 20 and 30-somethings; unfortunately, Regis was the only thing about that show that was even remotely watchable. Reege was in visible pain watching the inane antics of his co-hosts. During their first episode, the other members of the show bought Regis a harness raising horse (not so cleverly named Regis the Horse) and spent 15 minutes comparing him to his namesake, before watching his first race, which he won.

Now, Fox Sports Live is a slightly different story. They hired two beloved Canadian sports anchors (Jay Onrait and Dan O'Toole, pictured left in top hats and mink coats) to helm the show, and like I said on Twitter while watching their premiere, I heard they "were gonna be good, but didn't realize they were Dan Rydell & Casey McCall good! #SportsNight" And anything that makes me think of an Aaron Sorkin show (other than STUDIO 60 ON THE SUNSET STRIP) is a really good thing.

On a slightly tangential note, how cool is it to have ¾ of the original Broadway cast of GOD OF CARNAGE on THE NEWSROOM now? It does make me sad though that James Gandolfini won't ever get a chance to join them.

Unfortunately, if Jay and Dan are FOX SPORTS LIVE's good, nearly everything else on the show is the bad. The show features a panel of former athletes, including Mr. Brooklyn Decker (former tennis U.S. Open champion Andy Roddick), generally talking about sports that they have no knowledge of or insight into. While the beautiful ESPN defector Charissa Thompson does an admirable job trying to keep them on point, generally these segments do little more than make me want to flip back over to ESPN. (Watch this hilarious video of Jay and Dan reading their hate-tweets live on air)

Now for the one sports story that I have a feeling that you have heard about already. With news of Russia's increased crack down on LGBT citizens and "propaganda," many people have called on the United States Olympic Committee to boycott the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. Despite the outcry from both athletes and fans, the USOC has said that they reject calls to boycott the Games. Adding, "The Games bring people together. They unite the world and break down barriers...They demonstrate how people with disparate views can come together and celebrate what they have in common." Um...tell me that when there are figure skaters sitting in a Siberian prison.

In addition to civil rights activists and perhaps two world-champion Russian sprinters, many celebrities have taken this moment to speak out, including PRISON BREAK actor Wenworth Miller. On Wednesday, Miller sent a letter to the St. Petersburg International Film Festival, declining an invitation to attend. Miller said, "As someone who has enjoyed visiting Russia in the past and can also claim a degree of Russian ancestry, it would make me happy to say yes. However, as a gay man, I must decline." Until that point, Miller was not publically out.

Perhaps spurred by the situation in Russia, WWE superstar Darren Young became the first openly gay member of a major professional wrestling organization, when he came out via TMZ last week. While it is perhaps fair to question his venue for coming out, you can't fault his choice of role models. In his first tweet after coming out, the WWE superstar sent out a quote by none other than multiple Tony Award winner and Mrs. Doubtfire's brother, Harvey Fierstein, who has been championing the Sochi boycott cause for over a month.

Coming to Broadway in Fall 2013. A new musical from the Tony-winning team of Cyndi Lauper and Harvey Fierstien: KINKY WRESTLING BOOTS!

All right, mercifully that's all I've got for this week. Next week will be the TRANSLATING SPORTS: College Football Preview, where I will let you know who the Audra McDonald of College Football is, why you can pay for autographs at a Broadway Stage Door, but not a Community Theatre, and how to pick a totally plausible National Champion.

Have thoughts about TRANSLATING SPORTS or want to suggest a topic for next week's column? Leave a comment below, or tweet me at @BWWMatt. Check BWW Movies on Monday afternoon for my conversation with Tony and Academy Award nominated director Baz Luhrmann and BWW TV on Tuesday night for my recap of SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE's semifinal.