There’s Nothing Sly About Fox Approach

Now we know why Fox went with a seven-hour Super Bowl pregame show. It allowed for more self-promotion.

It wasn’t just all those promos for Fox shows such as “The Simpsons” and “King of the Hill,” it was everything.

One more segment of “Celebrity Trivia” featuring Fox stars, and we were ready to take a cue from the businesswoman in the computer ad Fox kept showing during the pregame show, the one who took the golf putter and started busting everything up.

It’s really too bad there wasn’t some high-ranking Fox executive to look at the plans for self-promotion and say, “Let’s not overdo this. We’re trying to get people to watch us, not turn them off.”

Fox’s overindulgence with self-promotion diluted many of the good things it did.

You saw Cris Collinsworth’s interview with former Cincinnati Bengal teammate Stanley Wilson, or Terry Bradshaw’s interview with former Dallas Cowboy Thomas “Hollywood” Henderson and thought, ‘Wow, that’s powerful stuff.’ ”

All the anti-drug ads in the world couldn’t do as much as those two interviews did. Henderson, now devoted to helping young people in Austin, Texas, told Bradshaw he watched his Hall of Fame speech on a 13-inch black-and-white TV in prison. During that speech, Bradshaw mentioned that Henderson had once said Bradshaw “couldn’t spell cat if you spotted him the ‘c’ and the ‘t.’ ”

But then you saw “Beverly Hill 90210” star Jason Priestley conducting a tour of the party life in South Beach, and the reaction is, what a waste of time.

And the special edition of “Hardcore Football,” shown at 8:30 a.m., complete with street noise and gawkers, was little more than a promo for the show and Fox Sports Net, the group of regional sports networks that carry the show.

The Keith Olbermann segment that followed, although Olbermann got off some decent lines, was also a poorly disguised promo for Fox and Olbermann, Fox Sports News’ new wonder boy.

The self-promotion wasn’t too bad during the game. Sure, we got a shot of Calista Flockhart and one of her “Ally McBeal” co-stars in the stands (wonder how much Calista paid for her ticket?) but at least someone didn’t draw Bart Simpson into one of the seats.

And there was a shot of former President Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalyn, with Commissioner Paul Tagliabue, and the Carters aren’t even on a Fox show.

Although John Elway’s 80-yard touchdown pass to Rod Smith was almost missed because of an ill-advised commercial break, the game coverage was about what you’d expect from the Fox crew of Pat Summerall, John Madden, director Sandy Grossman and producer Bob Stenner. They’ve been together for 18 years, counting the past five at Fox, and they had a typically good day.

Madden again showed he is still the best football commentator in the business. Twice he questioned why the Falcons weren’t going for a field goal on fourth and short, and twice he was right.

We saw one new Fox innovation, which was impressive. While setting the lineups, the players appeared to emerge from the end zone. Fox calls this graphic technique “Fox and goal.”

Of course Fox would be in the title. Fox--and Fox people--were everywhere all day long.

It started shortly after Fox came on the air at 8 a.m. A Super Bowl retrospective focused on people such as Matt Millen, Madden, Bradshaw, Ronnie Lott and even former Buffalo linebacker Ray Bentley--all Fox Sports employees.

To Fox’s credit, before going to a roundtable discussion of Super Bowl memories by Fox employees, the network did have Pam Oliver file a report on the big news of the day--Falcon safety Eugene Robinson’s arrest the night before on sex solicitation charges.

That was the first time we learned Robinson, earlier on Saturday, had received the Bart Starr Award, which is supposed to go to someone who exemplifies high moral character.

The roundtable discussion did have its moments. At one point, Collinsworth, a two-time Super Bowl loser, said, “I don’t get paid enough to be here and listen to all this.”

Madden said his pregame speech before his Oakland Raiders beat Minnesota in Super Bowl XI consisted of: “Don’t worry about the horse being blind, just load the wagons.”

On the 1 1/2-hour “All-Madden, All-Millennium Team” show, which for the most part was actually pretty good, Bradshaw and Long were named to the team. Interestingly, O.J. Simpson and Marcus Allen were not. You can understand Madden staying away from Simpson, but Allen? Oh, that’s right, he works for CBS.

“If [former Bengal coach] Sam Wyche was picking the team, maybe I would have made it,” Collinsworth quipped.

Said Bradshaw: “If you had been a member of the pregame show for more than one year, John would have been compelled to put you on.”

He was only half-kidding.

Wonder if anyone at Fox noticed how Summerall, co-host of the Madden show, introduced Baltimore Colt great Raymond Berry. “Everybody loves Raymond,” Summerall said. Hey, Pat, that’s a CBS show.

But what we really hope is that Fox--and ABC, which has the next Super Bowl--will realize that too much self-promotion is self-defeating.