Mike Greenberg Is Getting A Sitcom; Or, Why TV People Think You're An Idiot

The sitcom will revolve around a cipher of a sports talk show host, who's alternately paired with a boorish former athlete co-host and a long-suffering wife, so essentially Mike Greenberg, because Mike Greenberg has a fascinating life and a lot of TV people think you will be interested in watching a fictionalized version of that life, because some people bought Greenberg's book about the exact same thing, and also because TV people like high-concept plots like these because they are familiar and comfortable and they think viewers are idiots and want familiar and comfortable and if you bought Mike Greenberg's book, you're probably one of those idiots who would enjoy his show or at least purchase the products advertised during its airing.

Greenberg's sitcom should not be confused with Herd Mentality, where a cipher of a sports talk show host is alternately paired with his cute tomboyish co-host and a long-suffering wife, or with Home Game, where a cipher of a retired athlete is alternately paired off with his long-suffering wife and his long-suffering offspring, either of which might sound similar to Mike Greenberg's show, but isn't because the not-Mike-Greenberg character is well-dressed and effete, which is in direct contrast to what you'd expect from a dude in sports, and contradiction is the heart of comedy, you see.

It's also interesting that ESPN parent company ABC is picking up Greenberg's sitcom, because you'd expect three unfunny ESPN personalities to all get shows only if it were some kind of corporate synergy plan to push them on us, but it's not that at all since it was CBS that ordered episodes of Cowherd's and Schlereth's sitcoms, which means that different TV people simultaneously decided that sports-obsessed males who work in sports and have family lives outside of sports make for interesting characters, which is sort of a thing that happens every now and then when TV people take a simple idea and drive it into the ground, but I guess it's OK to try this particular formula again because the six-year statute of limitations on Everybody Loves Raymond has run out and anyway no one remembers that show where Jason Alexander played Tony Kornheiser.