Al Michaels Game Quotations

For the last few years, we at ABC have been lobbying for a... flexible schedule... which would allow us to select a game of importance in the latter part of the season. We'd like to think that progress has been made in this area, but one of the problems is that the other television partners, FOX and CBS, would lose one game from their inventory. Neither of those networks want to lose a game, and I can certainly understand their reasoning.

If there are dominant teams, people enjoy discussing whether that's good or bad for the game, and if there aren't any dominant teams, then people enjoy discussing that.

I've always felt that the game itself is pretty much a melody and I am there to provide the lyrics. You want the lyrics to match the melody, because if you are composing a song or recording a song, it's cacophonous if they don't match.

That place rocks. When I'm in there on Monday nights, if the game is good, it's about as loud as any place in the league. People think it's laid-back ... but fans there can be as passionate as fans anywhere.

I won't be part of anything that distracts from our telecast. We are preparing to do a game that about 100 mil- lion people will watch. That is all we are doing. Next season starts next week.