Americans love watching sports on television. Television about sports is another matter: Getting viewers to watch a sports-themed show is TV’s equivalent of a Hail Mary pass, except that it’s even less likely to succeed.
Yet NBC is trying the gambit yet again. On Tuesday night, the network will begin airing “Friday Night Lights,” a series inspired by journalist Buzz Bissinger’s 1990 book and the 2004 film, both of the same name. The main difference: Instead of focusing on the true story of a high school football team in football-crazed Odessa, Texas, the series follows a fictional high school football team in a non-existent football-crazed Texas town.
It’s easy to understand NBC’s logic here: The network is already paying the National Football League $3.6 billion over the next six years for the rights to broadcast “NBC Sunday Night Football” and a few Super Bowls. An average of nearly 19 million viewers have tuned in for the network’s games so far this season. Why not use that platform to push a little more pigskin into viewers’ lives?
Bissinger, who spent a year reporting on his original book and also worked with the filmmakers who brought his story to the big screen, is less involved with the NBC version. But the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, who most recently published the baseball book “Three Nights in August,” still has high hopes for the show. He talked to Forbes.com about sports on television, lousy television shows and working with Hollywood.
Forbes.com: This is the second time your book has been adapted. How involved were you this time around?
Bissinger: The series is inspired by the book, not based on it. That’s how the credit reads. When I sold the film rights in 1990, I also sold the television rights. My role is unofficial, but I do have a special relationship [with the project], since the creator and director of the pilot, Pete Berg [who also directed the film] is my cousin. Family ties count for something, and he does listen to me. At Pete’s request, I met with the writing staff over the summer to urge them to keep it as real as possible, not to create some trashy teenage soap opera, and based on the three episodes I have seen, they have done that. The series bears many thematic similarities to the book. I am proud to be associated with it.
Two years ago, your story made it to the silver screen. What did you think of the finished product?
I thought the film was terrific — taut, gritty, authentic, haunting. It captured for me what the essence of the book was about — the incredible intensity of high school football in American life, the monumental pressure that is placed upon kids to act like men, and the noble ability of these kids to come together at great sacrifice.
The residents of Odessa, Texas, didn’t love your book, and they were initially worried about the film version. How have they reacted to the upcoming television series?
Since the series is in the present day and set in a fictional town in Texas called Dillon with different characters, there has been little reaction from Odessa. Many in town did hate the book initially — that’s putting it mildly — but over time, they have come around and have acknowledged that the book, as difficult as it was to read, presented the portrait of a town that needed to change. And to Odessa’s credit, it has changed.
The racial tensions that were prevalent in your book were largely missing in the 2004 film version. Will that theme reemerge in the NBC series?
Racial tension is a fact of American life, in sports, in schools, in neighborhoods urban and rural. I think it’s an essential theme to explore. In the swell of the real estate boom over the past decade (and now bust), it is a theme that the media has all but ignored.
Based on the episodes I have seen, there are hints that this is something that will be explored.
You worked on Walt Disney-owned ABC’s “NYPD Blue” in 1993. How has the television climate changed since then? Is it harder to do interesting television in the post-Nipplegate environment?
I don’t think television hinges on how much of a nipple you can show on screen. The problem with television today is that most of it, with the exception of HBO, is escapist garbage — which defines our times, because we want to escape from the grimmer and grimmer realities of American life.
But much of it is silly. “Studio 60” is a silly show, nothing more than a paean to what a genius the creator Aaron Sorkin is, wrapped around the making of a television show that no one should care about. I know the making of prime-time television week in and week out is draining, but you are also paid zillions for it. There is nothing bold about this show — it’s an insulated view of an insulated world without the fun of “Entourage.” I watched “Shark,” or as much of it as I could stomach — even worse. They will no doubt win an Emmy for overwrought writing. I watched the new Ted Danson show [“Help Me Help You”], and he needs to dye his hair brown.
What I like so much about “Friday Night Lights” is that it is real and feels real and isn’t afraid to be real. It is not over the top. It is about real issues — hope, pressure, expectation, intensity, teenage immortality and sudden mortality, parental expectation.
Sports shows on TV tend to be short-lived: Recent casualties include “Sports Night” (1998-2000), “Clubhouse” (2004-05) and “Playmakers” (2003). Any reason to think your show will do better?
First of all, that isn’t exactly correct. “Playmakers” was successful as I understand it, but was pulled off the air by ESPN after bowing to pressure from the NFL. The other shows you cited were not about the core of American life. “Friday Night Lights” is about the core of American life, an essential American value. The book has never gone out of print in 16 years. It has sold 1.2 million copies. That, to me, is proof that people responded to the themes of the book in an amazing way.
And by the way, we are far more obsessed with sports now — every sport, whether it’s lacrosse or fencing or high school football or high school basketball — than we ever were when “Friday Night Lights”was published. It has become an obsession at thousands of schools and colleges around the country, with dangerous ramifications. What should be a diversion has become the focal point of life.
Meanwhile, MTV has a football show of its own: “Two-a-days,” a reality series that follows a high school team in football-crazed Hoover, Ala. Any coincidence?
I have no proof, but come on — it sure feels like a rip-off. Just like the film “Varsity Blues,” also made by MTV, was a rip-off. I haven’t watched either, by the way. I know the real story. I don’t need to be reminded. And hey, imitation, even if it’s poor imitation, is the sincerest form of flattery.
In general, the reality genre seems like an easier bet for TV executives these days. Does this worry you?
What worries me is how stupid the reality genre is, how popular it is and how many Americans seem to luxuriate in the mindlessness of it. We have become an age of disinformation and ignorance, and we almost seem to take pride in that. And, of course, these shows are not reality. The people in them are just amateur actors who cost a lot less than the real thing. I also think, and maybe it’s just vain hope, that their time is coming and going.
Your 2005 book, “Three Nights in August,” is currently being adapted for the silver screen. Having been through this process before, are you approaching it differently this time around?
There is a wonderful line from the movie “Croupier” that I whisper to myself with great frequency — “Hold on tightly, let go lightly.” It took 14 years for “Friday Night Lights” to be adapted to the screen. I am thankful that the folks at Imagine, in particular Brian Grazer and Jim Whitaker, never gave up on it even when I had. But I have learned to keep my expectations low. Movies cost a lot of money, and in the end, you are still depending on the unknown variable of American taste. The driving force behind “Three Nights,” the wonderful actor and comedian Kevin Pollak, has a great take for the film. It could be wonderful. But I am holding off on any plans to buy a pied-a-terre in Paris.
What are your emotions going into Tuesday night’s premiere?
I have a vested interest. I love my cousin Pete. I love the producers, whom I got to know when they made the film. I want the show to succeed, because it will sell books and I have tuition to pay. But beyond self-interest, I want the show to succeed because it is good, damn good, and real and beautifully acted. Kyle Chandler, who plays the head coach, is exceptional. So I will watch quietly with my wife and kids. Then, of course, I will wake up early and call the producers and see what the overnight ratings are. And then I will either laugh or cry.