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Wednesday, September 23, 2015

An open letter to football broadcasters...

Dear Sports Broadcasters at NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox, ESPN, ESPN2, The Ocho, ETC.....

Why don't you show marching bands performing at halftime during your football broadcast?

Let me break it down for you: According to the NCAA Division 1 Wiki page, there are about 85 team members on an average college football team. In contrast, in some colleges and universities there are 4 times that many marching band members. I'm not good at math but that's a lot of potential eyes.

You folks show play after play when the ball is on the field. You show the play, you show the replay, you show the replay from the 35 different camera angles you have. But at halftime, you don't show the marching band. Why??

My girl. I bought the pic.

As a parent of a member of the Pride of West Virginia Mountaineer Marching Band I'm really quite annoyed at you. You see, last Sunday, my daughter along with the other 300+ members of the Pride traveled to Pittsburgh to perform their pregame and halftime show for the Steelers home opener against the San Francisco 49ers. The Steelers game was not televised in my area (only the Redskins game was televised, every other sports channel had water polo or some other 'sport'). I was struggling to find the Steelers game online and finally came across a shady and suspicious site that was live streaming the game, and I'm sure my computer is now infected with about 5 dozen viruses. And for what? You didn't even bother to MENTION that the band was performing. For those kids, it was the chance of a lifetime performing at Heinz Field. But for you, it meant nothing.

My daughter's old high school band director has some souped up Sunday NFL package where he gets to see every second of every Sunday football game and he, too, was watching the Steelers game, looking for the WVU band. But alas, they showed no band. Oh wait, I'm lying. He DID tell me that they showed the band for about 3 seconds but there was no sound. Only the endless droning of the football commentators rehashing what we may have missed in the first half.

Look, if I'm watching a football game, I'M WATCHING IT WITH MY EYES OPEN. You DO NOT have to tell me what happened in the first half. I was sitting right there watching it. I saw it, I'm not an idiot. Sometimes I'm even drinking and I STILL remember what I saw. It's crazy but I really don't want to watch highlights of plays I JUST SAW. I WANT TO SEE THE BAND.

Let me get back to those numbers I mentioned at the beginning of this rant letter. Imagine, for a moment, how high your ratings would be if you just showed the marching band's halftime performance! 300 band kids out there, with parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends, associates, band directors, and we ALL WANT TO SEE OUR KIDS ON THE FIELD. That's literally tens of thousands of eyes on your broadcast, waiting patiently to watch our kids.

I promise you, I am not taking anything away from the football players. I love football players, I wrote about one here. But the band members work their asses off every single day to perfect their music, their show, they bring so much joy and entertainment to so many people. It's just a shame that this entertainment isn't ever shown on your broadcast. I'm not just talking about pro football, I'm talking about ALL football broadcasts. Let's show some respect to the band programs out there and get some cameras on these young men and women!

Yours truly,


  1. Amen! This is the thought process of every single band parent in the country. Thanks for putting into words what others think.

  2. I agree. Most of what they talk about anyway is useless drivel. Show the halftime bands and entertainment!

  3. Where's the like button??? Sing it girlfriend!!

  4. Amen...I have two in that band. Would have loved to see them from the peace of my living room...and in living color. And it is not just the college bands...I know several who play for the Raven and Redskins bands. Would love to see those folks too.

  5. I am a die hard Mountaineer fan and I love me some football, but I stay in the stands to watch the Pride of West Virginia perform when I have the opportunity to go to a game and I do NOT have any family members who were or even are in the band. I would so enjoy seeing the band on TV!

    1. That is one fantastic band at one fantastic school!

  6. I agree. The band students put in a lots of hard work for their halftime shows and the only ones who see the show are people at the game. My son is a band student in high school and I know the day is coming he'll be a college band student. I would love to see him perform at the halftime shows but dont think I'll be going to every game. So, I'll be missing out on seeing my son's talent but parents of football, soccer, basketball and other sports will have the opportunity to experience seeing their child.

    1. Exactly my point, well said! I wish I could go to every game at which she's performing but I can't. Seeing it on TV would ease that pain a little and make for some awesome entertainment!

  7. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    As a former high school marching band member who loves to hear a college marching band perform, I would love this.
    In all honesty, this is the only reason I am watching sports to begin with but that is beside the point.
    I really need to write a post about the time I went to the Citrus Bowl Parade.
    It is good.
    Because it was bad.

  9. Oh that's really too bad.
    I took in a game at Harvard once and both their and Cornell's marching bands performed - oh my goodness,w hat a show!

  10. I agree with you about this but, the problem is we as a society never really leave high school. The NFL and their commentators, the ego-centric and overly entitled jocks will never willingly relinquish air time to band nerds of any kind. And you and I, the Mean Girls trying to hold their peers in check using only their wit and disdain, get caught in the middle. Keep fighting the good fight, Girl! Maybe one day the NFL will wake up and realize over half of their audience have vaginas....��

