Last week the premiere of Fox’s “Ultimate Tag,” featuring Pittsburgh Steelers and brothers T.J. and Derek Watt, won its Wednesday night time period in total viewers and demographic ratings, surely boosted by lead-in “The Masked Singer.” While “Ultimate Tag” was ordered to series a year ago, it fills a niche in the current sports-free TV lineup by providing athletic programming of a sort.
This week CBS debuts its own sports-entertainment hybrid, “Game On!” (8 p.m. Wednesday, KDKA-TV), which stars former New England Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski, a 2007 graduate of Woodland Hills High School. “Game On!” is based on the long-running British hit “A League of Their Own.”
British “Late Late Show” star James Corden imported the format and serves as executive producer on the show, which is hosted by Keegan-Michael Key (Nat Geo’s “Brain Games”) and features Gronkowski as the captain of one team and tennis great Venus Williams as the leader of a rival team.
Each team has a regular comic presence (Bobby Lee on Gronkowski’s team; Ian Karmel on Williams’ team) and features a weekly guest competitor from the worlds of entertainment or sports.
The teams compete in over-the-top, sometimes silly athletic challenges, from human darts to kicking a field goal during an L.A. Rams game to a soccer drill with musicians Mark McGrath, Coolio and Macy Gray.
In a teleconference with reporters last week, Corden said after years of success in England, the key to making an American edition of the show was finding the right American stars with chemistry.
“There’s no reason this show couldn’t work in the United States,” Corden said. “No country on Earth is more used to entertainment working with its sports.”
He emphasized that “Game On!” is intended to appeal to multi-generational audiences, “families who could sit and watch the show together enjoying it, and you don’t have to be a sports fan to love the show.”
Gronkowski said he was drawn to “Game On!” by the competitive element and, perhaps more importantly, the humor.
“We never took ourselves too seriously. We love competition, but it wasn’t like an all-out competition, more of a fun, joyful type of atmosphere,” he said. “I like competing, but at the same time I like to have a laugh. … It was never frustrating when I didn’t do well. We were up there for the joy of the show.”
Gronkowski filmed “Game On!” after retiring from football in March 2019 after playing for the Patriots for nine seasons and before rejoining the NFL in April to play for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers alongside former Patriot Tom Brady.
“I don’t think either organization would have allowed me to do it except possibly in the off-season,” Gronkowski said. “Some of the challenges are pretty epic and pretty dangerous. The monster truck one I don’t think I would have done if I was still playing football.”
The only “Game On!” competition that could prove more dangerous, at least to Gronkowski’s ego: rhythmic gymnastics.
“I was sensational at it,” Gronkowski said. “When the episode comes out, I’m pretty sure during [Tampa Bay] training camp, they’re gonna want to see a rhythmic gymnastics routine live.”
TV usage rises
Local newscast ratings in May were mostly up compared with May 2019 — funny how a pandemic will do that — but what about overall TV viewing?
According to Nielsen, total use of television (including connected devices and game console usage as well as time-shifted TV viewing via DVR or video on demand) in the Pittsburgh market reached its pandemic peak the week of March 23rd, followed by a mostly gradual decline through April and then a slight spike in usage the week of May 4. Even in early May, TV usage was above where it was the week of March 9 — just before the COVID-19 crisis began to ramp up.
Comparing the week of May 4 with the week of March 9, total day ratings in Pittsburgh were up 7.7%, ranking Pittsburgh No. 12 among the 20 markets nationally to see the most ratings growth. Baltimore was No. 1 with 12.4% ratings difference March-to-May while Albany, N.Y., was No. 20 with a 4.9% difference.
It’s worth noting that Pittsburgh began from a place of robust TV watching. No other city in the list of Top 20 markets to see an increase in ratings began with a higher total day rating. This is to be expected: Pittsburgh typically has a larger percentage of homes using television than most TV markets nationally.
TV writer Rob Owen: rowen@post-gazette.com or 412-263-2582. Read the Tuned In Journal blog at post-gazette.com/tv. Follow RobOwenTV on Twitter or Facebook.
First Published: May 26, 2020, 12:00 p.m.
