Showtime ends "The Franchise" a week early
When the Miami Marlins were announced as the subject of this season's edition of "The Franchise" on Showtime, expectations were high due to the Marlins' spending spree this offseason and the installation of the controversial Ozzie Guillen as manager. Unfortunately, the Marlins season spiraled out of control, the team had a fire sale in July, and they're currently hanging out in the cellar of the NL East.
The show has now been stopped a week before it was initially supposed to end according to the Sun-Sentinel. The final episode of the series will air on Wednesday, with the preview episode from April (focusing on Guillen's ridiculous Fidel Castro comments) counting as one of the eight episodes in the show's contract. With the way Miami's season has gone, all parties involved felt it was for the best to just end things now instead of prolonging the series another week.
Ozzie Guillen succinctly summarized his feelings on the end of the show with a comment to the Miami Herald:
“The way we play, who wants to watch that [expletive]?" Guillen said. “I don’t want to watch it. Every time I watch an episode, I get depressed. With the voice of the [narrator] ... ‘And the Marlins lost again. And they have a tough time ...’ ’’
Yeah, that sums the series up pretty well right now. You'd think they could cobble together some sort of season finale on the hideous centerfield scultpture at least. One has to wonder if the show will return next season after the Marlins failed to live up to preseason hype. I'd welcome it, but I think some franchises could be a little mum on allowing Showtime access to their operations in the detail that the Marlins did.
As a Marlins fan, I had high hopes for this season, especially with the show filming it all. I thought it would at least go til the end of the bb season, but I guess they've had enough. I enjoy the inside access to the operations, and hope other teams agree. But I'm most disappointed that my team struggled during their one shot on this stage.
I don't think it's a great excuse, but the Giants had little luck last year (injuries, awful hitters) when Showtime filmed them. Teams will use these two examples to decline the coverage
