Robert Griffin III isn’t offering subtle sex jokes and funny references during ESPN college football broadcasts because he likes going viral, he’s doing it for the fans.
Griffin joined The Dan Le Batard Show this week, where Jessica Smetana asked the former NFL quarterback about trying to appease a younger audience while working with older colleagues.
“The references that we use are more common to nowadays,” Griffin said. “Where some of the references that the people on the crews I work with are using are some from the ‘70s and ‘80s. And I wasn’t alive then.”
"That's why people loved John Madden. He had fun in the broadcast booth." – @RGIII joined us to talk about his contagious energy while calling games and explain the difference in what older viewers vs. younger ones want in a broadcast.
📺 https://t.co/QgcfibsOPW pic.twitter.com/AqD7YmCVWi
— Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz (@LeBatardShow) November 30, 2022
Some of the more current references Griffin used this season include, “big Penix energy,” “premature snapulation,” and “there’s an Orji in the endzone.” While the references may appeal to ESPN’s younger audience, you don’t have to be a Millennial or Zoomer to understand them. But according to Griffin, the older fan may prefer a less tantalizing broadcast.
“The older generation of viewers, they like the quote unquote boring style of analysis, the boring style of calling a game. Not really entertaining, kind of just saying what happened on the screen that almost anybody can stay,” Griffin told Le Batard and his cast of contributors. “Whereas the younger generation, they enjoy you breaking down the game in a way that’s simple, but complicated and also adding some pizzazz to it, having fun. That’s why people loved John Madden. John Madden had fun in the broadcast booth. Not everybody’s comfortable in their own skin to do that, I just so happen to be a guy that’s comfortable to go out there and not be afraid to make a mistake or show my personality.”
Griffin didn’t declare himself the next John Madden as an analyst, something networks are always searching for considering he was generally beloved after transitioning from the sideline to the broadcast booth. But Griffin may be establishing himself as ESPN’s next big star while his talents have pushed him to take a meteoric rise up the broadcasting ranks as a game and studio analyst this season. He’s funny, quick-witted, unfiltered, prepared, credible, and at just 32 years old, there’s no reason why his potential can’t reach Madden-like heights.
