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Barack Obama And Mitt Romney Will Be On Monday Night Football The Night Before The Election

According to a report from Sports Business Journal, both President Barack Obama and Governor Mitt Romney have reached out to ESPN about appearing on the November 5th telecast of Monday Night Football, when the Philadelphia Eagles will visit the New Orleans Saints. Neither have made many waves on the sports front during this election, but it appears both want to capitalize on the massive television audience MNF (13.8 million per game) draws as a last-minute effort to sway voters. The presidential election is the following day, Tuesday, November 6th.

Here’s more, via Sports Business Journal:

“ESPN has not made a final decision yet, but appears likely to have its longtime NFL studio host Chris Berman interview President Barack Obama and Gov. Mitt Romney during halftime of the Eagles-Saints game Nov. 5, according to Vince Doria, ESPN’s senior vice president and director of news. The campaigns also have expressed an interest in appearing on ESPN’s “Mike and Mike” morning radio show.

‘We’ve been approached and are strongly considering doing it again,’ Doria said. ‘If we do those, we will try to treat the candidates in a fair manner and try to find some questions that have a sports connection but have a substance to them.’”

This isn’t an unprecedented move, as both John McCain and Obama visited MNF in 2008 the night before the election. ESPN claims it doesn’t want to disrupt its “batting order,” and will therefore stick with Berman for the interview. He also conducted the interviews in 2008. Berman lobbed a few softball questions at each candidate, including giving them an opportunity to talk about what they would fix in sports (Obama, college playoff, McCain, PEDs), and what advice the sports world has given them in their careers. It looks like we’ll be set up for something similarly unobtrusive on November 5th, though it should be mildly interesting at the very least.

If you want to watch the ’08 interviews, go here.

[Sports Business Journal]

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