Tonight, ESPN will air the Kansas City-Green Bay game at Lambeau Field. It’s one of ESPN’s favorite places to visit as evidenced by its annual curling excursion in the NFL’s smallest market. The Monday Night Football production crew had a private party at the Green Bay Curling Club on Saturday.
It’s one of two annual outings for the crew of about 150, the other being its Christmas party. Producer Jay Rothman told the Green Bay Press-Gazette that it’s an opportunity for the employees to get together away from the stadium:
“It was just an out-of-the-park home run hit and continues to be,” said Rothman, who brought in trainers to teach everyone how to curl and keep score. “We work really hard, and I’m very much into team building and doing things on the road that just unite the team. That happens to be the highlight of the ‘Monday Night’ tour, for sure.”
In addition to throwing stones, the event has private catering including cheese and bratwurst which makes the whole event a must-attend for the ESPN crew. Rothman said analyst Jon Gruden attends, but never actually competes in the curling competition.
ESPN’s public relations blog produced this video of the Monday Night Football crew of the Saturday curling tournament.
Rothman says the tournament even has a winner!
“We actually have a Championship Cheese Belt that is awarded to the winner. … Believe me, it gets pretty competitive in the end when you’re playing for the belt. There’s a lot of bragging rights,” Rothman said.
As evidenced by the video, the crew seems to have the curling down pat, but it’s not quite Olympic-quality, it’s all about having fun and the Monday Night crew seems to be enjoying the whole thing.
Now if ESPN wants to put this on ESPN3 just so we can see Gruden’s ceremonial start to the tournament, that is something we would watch.
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