Amy Poehler once stated that athletes made the best hosts of Saturday Night Live, due to their ability to take directions, and the NBC franchise has delivered the sports/comedy one-two punch in spades over the years spotlighting names that range from Joe Montana, Walter Payton and Chris Evert to Derek Jeter, The Rock and LeBron James. The sports/comedy connection was made bigger last week, when Bryan Tucker, co-head writer of Saturday Night Live, announced the launch of The Kicker, while Funny or Die locked in a deal with the Detroit Pistons (story below).
The Kicker was launched through Above Average Productions, offering “a unique take on daily sports news and hilarious video content, starring top athletes and celebrities and upholding a ‘for fans, for fun’ philosophy,” with an eye toward helping brands connect. Last week saw one piece of content go viral courtesy of a video of “Weird Al” Yankovic offering a great take of a coach’s press conference. Other stars taking part in the endeavor include the likes of Kenan Thompson, Andy Samberg, JB Smoove, Ricky Williams, Jamaal Charles, Odell Beckham Jr. and Eric Decker. Cynopsis Sports spoke with Tucker about the ties between comedy and sports, how brands are able to take advantage of it, and how to bring the best out of athletes.
Tucker on sports and comedy: Part of The Kicker is personal. I’ve been involved in comedy for a very long time, but I also have a passion for sports. I went to the University of North Carolina and am a huge college basketball fan. I just thought, also, that there was an audience for this that was underserved. There are so many sites that are exclusively about sports and give you analysis and commentary, and then there are sites that are primarily for comedy that might have a little sports content, but that’s not their focus. I just didn’t see anything out there that focused entirely on comedy and sports.
On launching The Kicker: It took a while. I’ve been thinking about it and even pitched it a little bit for the past ten years, but once I was at Saturday Night Live and part of the Broadway Video/Above Average family, I had those resources at my disposal and refocused it into being a digital destination. Together, we pitched it around to the right people, and with the help of Above Average and started picking out a staff in May and started putting out content about a month ago.
On athletes: I’ve been at SNL for ten years and have been lucky enough to have had a bunch of great athletes as hosts. Peyton Manning was one that was especially memorable. We had LeBron James there during my fourth year and I wrote a sketch with Jason Sudeikis where we got to shoot around a basketball with him at rehearsal. One thing we have to do at SNL that a lot of other shows don’t have to do, is that we have a new person coming in every week and we have to figure out their voice and what makes them funny. They obviously aren’t all comedians. Some are serious actors, and we have a politician coming up, and it’s our job to figure out there strengths and try to write around that. I’ve had some experience doing that and I thought I could bring that to this.
On working with brands: This summer we did a branded campaign with Lenovo, called Fantasy Online College where I got my friend JB Smoove to do a bunch of fun videos with NFL players. I wrote the script for the first few of the videos that they did. Having those athletes shine by using their own natural charisma is a big help. Since we’ve gone up, we are getting a lot of calls from both athletes and brands to take part in this. What we do that the brand doesn’t necessarily have is that we can be funny, first of all, and have access to a great pool of talent. I’ve been in TV for 15 years and I know a lot of comedians and writers and they get the entire family involved that we can call.
