Fox considered using an NBA shot clock buzzer to quiet candidates at the Republican debate
Whatever your political affiliation is (and please, never have a political affiliation), Thursday’s Republican Presidential Debate was always going to act as a circus. The sheer number of candidates involved, ten at last count, meant that any chance at nuance and a disciplined explanation of platform would be a no-go from the start. Everyone is going to be out for soundbites, pull-quotes, and something to go viral; saving the longer asides for the fall of 2016.
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The Republican Party’s king of viral soundbites, poll-leading businessman and reality TV star Donald Trump, is also on hand; which will only add to the chaos. This means the moderators behind the debate are going to have to great lengths in order to prevent entitled, well-heeled men from doing something entitled, well-heeled men don’t usually do: Shut the heck up.
As such, because the event is going to take place in the same home stadium that the Eastern Conference champion Cleveland Cavaliers play in, Fox News chief political anchor and debate moderator Bret Baier offered a simple solution for quieting candidates after their allotted time is up. You can’t sway these talkers with a gentle reminder, you need something that shakes the rafters, and even Austin Carr’s retired jersey.
To keep the debate on schedule, the Fox team was also discussing a possible alternative to the usual gentle ding sound that signals that a candidate’s time has expired: the actual shot-clock buzzer used during Cleveland Cavaliers basketball games, which are played at the same arena.
“You could make it about synergy in that arena: Use the very same buzzer that LeBron James hears on the court when the shot clock runs out,” said Mr. Baier, who had come up with the idea over dinner Tuesday night at a local bistro. (“I was inspired,” he said with a smile, “by a beer.”)
Despite adding two significant franchise-level players in LeBron James and Kevin Love and a NBA-level rookie head coach in David Blatt, the Cavaliers didn’t hear that buzzer a whole heck of a lot in 2014-15. Despite ranking 25 out of 30 NBA teams in pace, the slow-down Cavaliers were still a top three offense (and an absolute juggernaut down the stretch) and were just 13th overall in shot clock violations last season.
We won’t hear that buzzer go off on Thursday in favor of that “gentle ding,” Fox News will try to keep things civil as they usually do, but this is a brilliant idea for each of the endless debates we’ll have to sit through from now until Oct., 2016, and also most political and award ceremony speeches.
It’s more abrupt and to the point than the idea Dave Chappelle came up with years ago, and it will be a constant and needed reminder that we can always pick up the remote to click away from these awful things, and switch over to a basketball game.
(Hat-tip: Steve McPherson.)
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Kelly Dwyer is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @KDonhoops
