Murphy was informed last week by Greg Hammaren, senior vice president and general manager of FSD, that his services were no longer required. Murphy had worked for the station in some capacity since 2002-03.
“I was shocked, didn't see it coming,'' Murphy told MLive.com. “They said they just needed a change, ratings weren't what they were. That was basically it (for an explanation).
I wasn't much of a fan of Murphy's analysis, but to fire him only a couple months before his contract is up?
Darren Eliot and Trev Thompson are cool, get the rest of those idiots out of there. I have to admit, when i clicked on the article i half expected it to say its because he was drinking on the job, i swear murph gets hammered half the games. I really dont see Murph as the root of their problems though.
This is out of the blue. I liked Larry Murphy. I'll miss him getting excited about "Dollar Hot Dog Night." Kind of an odd explanation by FSD brass. I highly doubt Murph affected their ratings in any way. Are they going to put a hot blonde between the benches now?
Wow I feel bad for Murph. He wasn't that bad between the benches and firing him because of ratings is a bit odd. People don't watch sports games to listen to the commentators and even if they did he was better than what were gonna have next.
Now were stuck with one guy in the entire FSD crew who knows hockey.
I do feel bad for him, but he's an awful color commentator and awkward when on camera. I'd be ok with Eliott replacing him. Can the let Keating go too?
I think ratings will bounce back next season with the re-alignment and a full season of NHL.
Wasn't he between the benches during the Minny game?
Ratings are bad probably because the red wings suck, and has sucked for a few seasons... Naturally the ratings were higher during the 07/08 and 08/09 seasons
That was a low blow. Larry was harmless and did his job between the benches. As others pointed out, the team is not that good and is wildly inconsistent. Can't blame Larry for that.
There's gotta be some behind the scenes stuff. Sports team ratings almost never are really affected by the commentators, analysts etc. except in some very special cases (and Murphy wasn't that either positively or negatively).
The ratings, eh, it's hardly a surprise that after a lockout and with the Wings not being a Cup contender there's a dip.
I think theres more to this than we know. I distinctly remember thinking hes looked ****faced a few times on broadcasts ... personally idont give a **** - Murph was legit.
I keep seeing you guys saying he was drunk. But I've been drunk. I've been around drunk people. He didn't seem wasted to me. His speech was perpetually slurred, so unless he was simply perpetually drunk, I just thought that was how he talked.
Plus, he'd be a huge idiot to talk about what a surprise it was to be let go if FSD is just covering for his alcohol problem. Just invites people to look into it and maybe uncover something.
If you screw up at a job and get fired but your employer is willing to cite something like "just thought it was time to go our separate ways" instead of "he's a constant drunk" you would keep your mouth shut about it.
Murph never got comfortable in front of the camera. When he forgot he was on TV and just talked, he was OK. But he tried to hard.
Lower ratings is a copout, FSD might cut back if lower ratings are down. But I think the big picture here is that Darren Eliot is Redmond's successor. But they need to be careful with how they do this.
It sucks that they had to can him so unceremoniously, but Larry lacked in both on-screen personality and meaningful analysis. The broadcast will likely improve when they find a proper replacement or promote Trev to a greater role. I suspect there's a higher-profile candidate that came available for the job and Fox decided to snap them up.
