If You Crave Bitter Cliched Ranting, Have I Got a Show For You

On WFAN radio in New York, I've been hearing ads for Sports Unfiltered, a new Dennis Miller show airing on the Versus network (formerly known as the Outdoor Life Network). God knows I am no expert on radio programming. But why anyone would want to schedule a sports talk show featuring a right-wing blowhard who moreover was ranked the worst Monday Night Football commentator of all time in a 2006 poll is beyond me.

And then check out the supposedly boffo laugh lines the agency picked to highlight in the promotional ad:

Hey, I don't want to be the turd in the punch bowl, but calling big-time college football players "student athletes" is like calling Dr. J. an M.D.

Face it, folks, reading the sports pages these days is more depressing than watching Britney dance.

Are sports completely Teflon? What is it going to take to turn us all away? I guess Al Qaeda is going to have to buy the Cowboys and win the next Super Bowl on the back of a rejuvenated O.J. And don't laugh, folks--Juice looked pretty spry in his latest perp walk, didn't he?

Making jokes about Britney Spears and O.J. Simpson doesn't seem terribly witty or innovative this late in the day. But what makes this whole exercise especially egregious is the fact that, based on the ad itself, Miller is offering a sports talk show that is relentlessly negative about sports. Who exactly is this supposed to attract? Don't sports fans like sports? If someone actually considers sports meaningless and depressing, as Miller evidently does, why on earth would he or she tune in to a sports talk show?

I have a feeling that Sports Unfiltered may end up being every bit as successful as The Chevy Chase Show--and deservedly so.