NBC tried it with a 'B' football game — one that wasn't gonna get good ratings anyway. It did okay for the first quarter; I guess people tuned in for the novelty.
Anyway, for what it's worth, here's something Salon's King Kaufman wrote a couple of years ago:
As much as we all love to talk about who should be the announcer for this or that broadcast and how good or bad various announcers are, I've long maintained that announcers don't mean much to fans.
We're used to having them there, so not having them is something that would take some getting used to. A game with stadium or arena noise and no announcers just sounds kind of awkward to ears trained to either listen to or selectively tune out the omnipresent chatter that's accompanied action since the medium was new.
And make no mistake: We'll never have the chance to get used to such a thing. Announcers aren't there to provide insight and analysis or to identify players and describe action. They're required to do all those things, and we judge them on how well they do them.
But their primary purpose is to read promos. The networks and sponsors aren't giving that up. We're stuck with announcers for as long as we're stuck with money. http://www.salon.com/news/sports/col/kaufman/2005/08/24/wednesday/index.html
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