NBC will air an episode of Countdown with Keith Olbermann prior to Sunday Night Football next week, in an effort to “give a wider audience a look at what [Olbermann] has been up [to] for the last four years“.
Whether Sunday’s special edition of Countdown will be live or a taped special is unknown. It will be interesting to see whether or not this edition of Countdown will be a typical episode, which would likely include political news and scathing rebukes of the current presidential administration, or if it will be more along the lines of the comedic-in-nature Oddball specials Olbermann typically does at the end of each year.
Certainly, having a political program airing prior to a decidedly apolitical event seems risky, even in the preseason. Do fans really want to hear Keith Olbermann‘s opinion on the Bush administration prior to hearing his opinion on Ben Roethlisberger? Especially fans of the NFL, who are mostly Republicans? While Olbermann is vastly different from Rush Limbaugh, NBC should remember the lesson ESPN learned by having the opinionated right-wing talk radio pundit join the cast of Sunday NFL Countdown: make sure there is a distant separation from politics and sports. That means not airing an episode of Limbaugh’s radio show prior to Sunday NFL Countdown, and not airing an episode of Countdown prior to Sunday Night Football.
