My biggest takeaway from watching ESPN's new talk show with Bomani Jones and Pablo Torre is how the program's content doesn't match up with its caricature. One of the WorldWide Leader's chief protagonists, Clay Travis, has already dubbed the show "Everything is Racist" and "WokeCenter 3.0." So when I tuned in Tuesday, I was expecting both hosts to excoriate Donald Trump for canceling the Eagles' Super Bowl ceremony. If there was ever an episode that would feature Bomani and Pablo at their peak levels of supposed liberal lunacy, this would be it.
But instead of ranting and raving, the audience received moderation and nuance. "High Noon" spent roughly the first eight minutes discussing the Trump news, but never explicitly ventured into a discussion about race. Jones came the closest when he referenced football and basketball's "demographic dynamics" in comparison to other major sports, in order to explain why the annual White House visit has taken on a more politicized tone.
Bomani's lead take was how the NFL owners "played themselves" in their attempts to placate Trump with their new anthem edict. Torre focused on how Trump has increasingly politicized sports. There were no insults or barbs about white supremacy.
If there were, it would've perpetuated ESPN's perception as the militantly liberal sports network. Network executives want to avoid that. But it would've probably produced some passionate banter, and certainly garner some traction.
Instead, I was already getting lost in my Twitter feed when the third topic, A's first-round draft pick Kyle Murray committing to play football at Oklahoma next season, was introduced. My undivided attention was gone, and did not return for the remainder of the hour.
Jones and Torre are up against several challenges. The first hurdle, as Bryan Curtis outlines in his recent feature story about the show, is finding their place in the crowded landscape of studio sports TV shows. "Pardon the Interruption" remains the gold standard, because of Michael Wilbon's and Tony Kornheiser's chemistry with each other. No number of gimmicks can replicate or replace their rapport.
Erik Rydholm, the creator of PTI, also heads up "High Noon." While Jones and Torre are good friends off-camera, he recognizes the difficulty of transferring their connection to the unnatural setting of a television studio. "The problem was, the 'real' Pablo and Bomani weren't coming through the way Mike and Tony do on PTI," Curtis writes after one of the show's pilots last week. "'It was like the difference between observing a friendship and participating in it. I didn't get, as a viewer, enough on the feel side," Rydholm (said). "I didn't feel connected enough to them.'"
It's apparent Jones and Torre have an easy chemistry. They feed smoothly off each other and laugh at their partner's jokes. Bomani's closing take about why he would never spend $3.3 million for lunch with Warren Buffet was pretty funny. Only a "real player" has $3.3 million to spend on lunch, Jones said, but then again, "real players" don't need to spend $3.3 million to get face time with Buffett. Torre responded that he would want something better than lunch for that kind of dough.
But good chemistry isn't enough to carry an hourlong TV show. Wilbon and Kornheiser, in addition to their chummy dialogue, actually disagree with each other. Bomani and Pablo don't, or at least not in the traditional sense. They philosophize instead of argue, simulating a class discussion group more than two friends just shooting the breeze.
Take the segment about Kevin Durant, in which they discussed an oral history from the Athletic about Durant's 2016 free agent courtship. Jones and Torre honed in on Durant's comment about needing validation from his peers, expanding it to serve as a commentary on how the social media age can heighten our insecurities.
Just yelling back and forth about Durant's desire for praise would've been narrow, so it was refreshing to see Bomani and Pablo go beyond that. But then again, how many deep discussions about social media's impact on human behavior do you actually have with your friends at the bar?
Therein lies the problem. It's apparent Bomani and Pablo don't want to be shallow. But in their seeming efforts to heighten the discourse, they come across as, well, boring.
Nobody wants to hang out with two boring people, never mind watch them on TV.
