By the way, if you look at my predictions before the season – I suggested that I would be happy if we contended for the SEC and kept the football news in the “C” section where it belongs. Our schedule went from tough to ultra-tough when trading Auburn for Arkansas turned out to be less of a great deal than we thought. Oh, and our team consists of a LOT of true freshmen. Great for getting into trouble, one, and being inconsistent, two.
So far, so good. I’m not calling for Zook’s head. After that recruiting class I gave him three years to learn how to win. I hate those schools, many in the SEC, where the alums that live vicariously through ADing their alma maters put every coach on a revolving hot seat.
Oh, and cheating sucks. We tried it. At least we had the best teams money could buy in 1984-1985. Not watching the games on TV: priceless, and sucked donkey balls.
Being the underdog isn’t near as bad as plenty of other things that happen to your team is sports. I really hate it when players conduct themselves off the field in such a way that you can’t really root for them on it. Well, I can’t.
Oh, and while I’m proposing what I’d like to see happen with football coverage…
I’d also like an ‘Adults Only’ broadcast. Have a broadcast where the mikes on either side, including the line of scrimmage, are cranked up. I wanna hear it all. I want to hear the swearing, the insults, and the bickering back and forth that goes on at any game.
It’s interesting as hell.
But the networks are so friggen’ scared of someone saying something ‘bad’ that we inevitably miss have the fun that goes on down there these days. All we hear is the low drone of the crowd. Whoopee.
If someone actually has an opinion about the OP, and not the machinations of the Southeastern Conference of college football – and I can’t believe that… Well… Hey network drones: The idea above would REALLY IMPROVE broadcasting of sporting events.
Seriously, is there ANY downside to this – except the same stupid announcers job security every week?
I like that idea, too. Might be real fun.
As long as they’re not shit head rhesus monkey fuckers who have no idea of the current state of football (or whatever other pansy ass sport you may want to watch ) or what the rules are or who the players are, yada yada…
The only thing worse than a one sided bias in annoucing is someone up there in the booth basically eating their own feces by spewing nonsense or wrong info.
So, just so it’s down, this is my idea for a perfect broadcast.
Using the Green Bay Packers at Minnesota Vikings as an example.
First off, you have two channels of audio, like the Stereo and SAP setup of today. On one channel you get all the game sounds and banter. Sideline talk, scrimmage talk, all of it. A lot like those Sports Illustrated ‘inside the NFL’ tape things they hand out. You hear it all. Coach’s talking, players taunting, swearing, yelling like they do. Uncensored, but without commentary. Just the game.
On channel two you have the commentary added on. For commentary you have two guys who are loyal to one particular team. They know everything about the team and are well versed and good at slinging the shit. They are also permanent to that team for the entire year, meaning that even for next weeks game against someone else, he’s still in there for the Vikings, and the other guy for whoever team they’re playing.
And that would be cool in that for every game, every week, you always have a guy who’s in tune and up to date to the extreme on what’s going on with the team he represents. He can even be apart of local coverage and further get him in touch with what the fans are thinking and saying.
I think it’d be remarkable.
And finally, you have either one or two color guys to offset and interject with the two ‘pro whoever’ guys. Like a Maden. Listening to Madden toss around his knowledge, in the middle of the two arguing one way or the other, would not only be enlightening, it’d be entertaining as hell.
I remember watching the (soccer) world cup. The announcer did well enough with "No. 3 has the ball… No. 4… No. 3… If he can put it in the net he’ll score a goal… The goalkeeper tries to stop his…’
But they had no idea about the overall competition, except occasional guesses, or occasionally relayed unexplained info, or ‘and in 20 min, we’ll put up a chart that’ll explain everything. Read quickly, it’ll only be up for 1.5sec.’
My dad and I predicted which teams would go through in cases of goal difference and so forth better based on second-guessing the rules committee than the announcers did, presumably being paid to find out.
CNoteChris and NoClueBoy, great pioneers in the constipated, rigid, and totalitarian structure of sports broadcasting. Yes, let them have an opinion openly.
I don’t know how practical this would be in a live game situation. Wouldn’t it just be an unintelligible wall of noise? Thirty people talking at once? Those tapes have the benefit of post-production, where they go through the various soundtracks and pick the most interesting bits, after the fact. In a live situation, you’d have to have a control room person making choices about which track to give precedence to, based on what’s going on. And you wouldn’t know if somebody said something really interesting until after it had been said, which makes it too late to cut over to it. And furthermore, you’d risk giving the other side insights into your strategy; the tapes you reference come out long after the game has been played and consequently don’t reveal a lot. During a live game, one sideline could hear that the other sideline is discussing a play-action fake or whatever and send in a signal to the defense to watch for it.
I like the “partisan announcer” idea, though. Be really fun to have two guys arguing over the mike: “His feet were out!” “No, he got 'em down!” just like in the average living room, until the replay makes it obvious one way or the other. “Ha, I told you so!”
In last year’s Pro Bowl I was watching live as they listened in on the offensive coordinators calls to the quarterback and then the explanation on what that call meant (IE, butch-back forty squat five… a play option pass). Now that wasn’t a real call, so don’t go goofy on me, but what I heard, for nearly an entire three down series, was like the above. Live.
Granted it’s the Pro Bowl and no one really cares, but I think you could do similar things like that and not let the other side in on anything. I mean, take the Vikings game on Sunday. It would have been cool to listen in on Mike Tice bitch at the team for loosing their focus and their composure towards the end of the game. “Don’t lose your fucking composure Anthony. Goddamit! How many times I gotta fucking tell you!!”
That’d be the bomb.
And having too much audio wouldn’t be an issue. If the camera is on the coach, it picks up the coach. If it switches back to the line of scrimmage? Sound from the line. Your dealing with one central line of audio that’s in sync with whatever video is being shown.
I’m not versed in this stuff, but I believe that’s how they do it today.
In many ways I wish I’d never seen last years pro-bowl game. Getting an inside on what’s going on, and what’s about to go on, ie, 'Oooo, hey, listen. He’s calling a run to the right side". Or, “They’re going to blitz the right side. Watch.”. That was just incredible, and made me realize just how much I’ve been missing all these years.
I agree that biased announcers can be annoying, unless of course they are biased towards your team.
I, and many other Michigan football fans, still miss our old radio commentator Bob Ufer. He was a Wolverine fan and had no problem expressing his devotion over the air. Michigan coach Bo Schembechler was referred to as “General George Patton Schembechler” and Ohio State’s coach was “Woody Dr. StrangeHayes.” His call of Anthony Carter’s last second touchdown vs. Indiana is a classic bit of screaming, nearly incomprehensible cheerleading for the Maize and Blue.
In the parking lots surrounding Michigan Stadium on game days, you can still hear old Bob Ufer’s voice booming forth from the car radios and boomboxes of tailgaters. Yes, there are several CD’s and cassettes of his most memorable broadcasting calls, and there is quite a market for them among the Wolverine faithful.
My least favorite example of biased broadcasting is TBS’s baseball crew. OK, I know that they’re hired by the Braves’ owner, but having to listen to Skip Caray’s moaning every time the Braves fall behind is unbearable. Unfortunately, as I live away from the Phillies’ local feed, TBS is often the only place I ever get to see a Phils’ game.
Duke, how do you feel about the shameless homer-ism of Kalas, Wheeler, Anderson and crew? Those guys rival the TBS guys.
But my all-time favorite homer announcer was Joe Paterno’s ** BROTHER**! They actually hired his brother to do radio annoucing. He is dead now though. And he was neither fair or knowledgable. One of the worst announcers ever. And I love Penn State.
) or what the rules are or who the players are, yada yada…