There is not much love for Tiki Barber and the cast of MSNBC’s Olympic Update.
Via TVNewser, CJR‘s Robert Weintraub writes of Barber, “Olympic Update is on for two hours a day, but as far as Barber is concerned, it?s Amateur Hour.” He describes several mistakes Barber has made during the course of the week, including calling USA Basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski “Mike Rezevski“, referring to Hungary as Hungaria, and asking “Can I have that job?” during video of “hundreds of Chinese volunteers … cleaning up algae with their hands.”
While those mistakes may not seem particularly flagrant, Weintraub rationalizes the criticism by pointing out, “not everybody was so self-righteous about his abilities as a communicator when it came to defending his reason for leaving the NFL.”
Barber is not the only castmember on Olympic Update to face harsh criticism. Also via TVNewser, Rick Kushman writes that the show is the “[w]orst bit of the Olympic coverage … it?s just juvenile and nasty.”
Kushman calls out MSNBC host Tamron Hall, who usually covers politics and car chases, for “[treating] the sports and events surrounding the Games with a smarmy, gossipy tone like she?s on ‘Access Hollywood’.” As opposed to Weintraub, Kushman does not have anything bad to say about Barber, who he says “at least tries to be professional.”
Michael Zuidema of The Grand Rapids Press noted during a live-blog that Barber and Beijing co-host Jenna Wolfe “seem to have worse chemistry than Barber and Eli Manning.” The Sports Business Daily says “we doubt anyone would care if this program disappeared from the schedule.” SBD says the show is “a little too casual“, and sarcastically notes, “[i]f only they would show multiple slow-motion replays of a Hungarian weightlifter dislocating his elbow.” The Thought Bubbles blog points out “the massive incompetence of Tiki Barber and Jenna Wolfe. … Their banter is horribly stilted, neither can read off a teleprompter smoothly, and they can?t even pronounce the athletes? names correctly!”
