Marketing 101: Al Michaels Compared Announcing This Year's Thursday Night Games To Selling A 20-Year Old Mazda

[Source] - The 78-year-old certainly wasn’t shy about sharing his disdain with a lot of the football he had to witness. This was never clearer than the October 6 showdown (to put it kindly) between the Indianapolis Colts and Denver Broncos. This snoozer of a game, won 12-9 by the Colts in a field goal-fest, had Michaels referring to it as “farcical” and pondering aloud if it was so bad it’s somehow good.

I said to Kirk (Herbstreit), “Is it possible this game could be so bad that it’s actually good?” He’d never heard that from a partner and went, “No!”

“I think they understood what this was. We’re making the most of it. I mean, you just can’t oversell something. Do you want me to sell you a 20-year-old Mazda? That’s what you’re asking me to do. I can’t sell you a used car. … I’ve kind of gone down that road a little bit in games that have been bad in the past. But this game was horrifically bad. What were you supposed to do at that point? And away I went.”

I love Al Michaels. Dude just says it as it is. Iconic voice. Iconic calls. I mean, he's not wrong. Thursday Night Football is 1) awesome because we're watching the NFL on a Thursday and we all tune in no matter what and 2) typically awfully played games. Both are true, both is just sort of what everyone agrees on. Sure, some games work out because they are close or the two quarterbacks catch fire, but for the most part we acknowledge the game stinks but it's football. 

The real thing here is the ricochet shot at Mazda. They aren't bad cars! My old man had one when I was a kid. Looked sweet (probably didn't, but for like a 10-year old it did). But this is why I love Michaels. Just says it as it is. Again, it's very, very easy to call an iconic game. If you are lucky enough to be the announcer for a historical game, an awesome game, it's not hard. You just let the game tell the story, chime in when you have to.

But for a Colts game? Really any Colts game, doesn't matter the opponent, you have to do anything and everything to sell it. 

Or just admit the game sucks and laugh about it with Kirk. Either one really. 

Now, what's the answer? Simple, the solution is get rid of Thursday Night Football, which will never happen. The NFL gets to dominate another night of the week. They got to sell the TNF package to Amazon for more money. They don't care if it's bad games or anything like that, they know we're all going to sit in our recliners and watch a shitty TNF game. Because, hey, it's football. 

Long live Al man.