Tiki Barber retired a decade ago to much fanfare and a multi-platform media gig with NBC. It didn’t go well. Identical twin brother Ronde Barber retired amid much less fanfare, and he has carved out a respectable career as a game analyst.
Coming soon, the brothers will join forces.
According to Michael McCarthy of SportingNews.com, Tiki will join Ronde in the FOX booth for the October 1 game between the Giants and the Buccaneers. It’s apparently part of an effort to drive interest via a series of one-off booth assignments.
The three man Tiki-Ronde-Kenny Albert arrangement shouldn’t hurt ratings, but gimmicks like this won’t help, either. People typically tune in for games, not for the people calling the games. And while it’s possible that the apparent prescience of Tony Romo will prompt more fans to listen to the games Romo is working, it’s hard to imagine anyone who wasn’t already interested in watching the Giants and the Bucs seek the game out just so that they could hear Tiki and Ronde -- a duo who had peak relevance over a decade ago -- comment on a game involving their two former teams.