After watching a hockey game last weekend, with an announcer to whom I’m not used to listening, the constant babble really started to get to me.
"Back to “player A,” over to “player B” who dumps it in the corner. Now picked up by “player Z,” and over to “player Y,” who flips it out over the line.
You know, I can actually SEE that. I don’t need you to inform me about every single thing that’s happening. Then, I got to thinking about other sports, and it’s pretty much the same thing. Is this a leftover habit from radio days, or even perhaps when you were looking at a 14" black and white display?
I don’t have HDTV yet, but plan to in the next month. I’m sure it will bother me even more then when I’ll be able to see everything even more clearly. I wish they would put the announcers on a secondary audio channel or something, and that way you could watch the game without the constant, inane chatter. The time would be much better spent updating the listeners with facts and figures rather than describing in detail EXACTLY what you’re seeing for yourself, with your very eyes, as it’s described!
If it’s an announcer I like–like, say, Harry Kalas–a great call can make the moment even better. The Phillies brought in a new play-by-play guy this year, who seems to be the heir apparent when Harry leaves. He does that “facts and figures” thing the entire time he’s on the air, and I want to strangle him. I don’t care that Juan Pierre is the third of eight children*; I do want to know that he’s on an eight game hitting streak.
I don’t watch a whole lot of hockey, but I’d imagine that the play-by-play is especially good for the identification of penalty calls, especially when they happen outside of the camera’s view. Also, does your TV have a mute button?
ETA: I made that up about Juan Pierre; I don’t know, and again, I don’t care.
Sometime in the 80’s one of the networks ran an experiment where they broadcast an entire football game (or maybe it was just a half) with no announcers at all. Just the little graphics showing the downs and yardage and stats and things like that. Needless to say, it didn’t catch on.
I think that if you aren’t actually at the game, experiencing all the atmosphere and all that, the play-by-play and color commentary adds that little extra that you need. Moreso for baseball than any other sport, I’d venture to say.
It’s nice since the announcer has a spotter who can translate player numbers into names without me thinking about it. More of a football concern, I guess.
Yes, exactly. Or the shots on goal are 11 to 5 for team Q at this point, or other things that might actually be of interest. Describing exactly what I’m watching is superfluous information.
Yeah, but the play-by-play has one advantage: it lets you get up, go to the bathroom or get a beer, and not miss out on things. Apparently that’s what killed the NBC “silent broadcast” game: fans felt nailed to their sofas.
Give it time. I’ll wager that within a couple of years you’ll have several audio options to choose from – home team announcer, away team announcer, ambient sound only, etc.
If you’re a Leaf fan then the problem is Bob Cole! LOL
He know all the Leafs’ names and numbers, but anyone any opposing player is a [insert team name].
I think I heard this during a game: “Here comes Alexei Ponikarovsky up the ice, he fends of a Ranger player, Ponikarovsky passes through a Ranger player to Antropov, here’s Antropov in the corner, the two Rangers are battling to get the puck from Antropov, now Antropov passes out front to Stajan, Stajan shoots! Save made by the Rangers net minder…Er…um…Linquist”
Seriously, the play by play is mostly for people who are not watching the screen. They may be in the next room or working on something else, or just not facing the TV. Remember sports broadcasts originated on the radio before the advent of TV.
The colour man was added to fill gaps between the play by play to avoid “dead air” time.
They also have a secondary function in teaching the sport to new fans and viewers, they also may explain the rules and intricacies of the game, which is why often they are former players.
If you are an avid fan and already know the players names and numbers, rules, etc. you may find them redundant. As a Leaf fan you may already know there seems to be alot of people who wear the jersey but don’t understand the game!
BTW Bobe Cole was a championship curler fron the early 70’s which explains his knowledge of hockey.
Yes – it was a Jets-Miami game. It actually was interesting to watch; you could get the information from the screen and it seemed more like you were at the game (the sound was primarily crowd noises). It did teach NBC some things about how to broadcast, most notably that the announcers could keep quiet at times of action (say, a last-minute touchdown) and it would be even more effective than speech. They actually put that into practice for a few years, but it seems to have been forgotten.
I’m a big fan of play-by-play for sports I’m not that familiar with. I understand football pretty well, baseball passably, and hockey poorly.
Also, don’t they (often?) use the announcers for both television and radio? They’d have to hire separate sets of announcers if they were going to provide a different audio feed for the two different media.
I can’t speak for everywhere, but television announcers for Red Sox, Celtics, Bruins & Patriots are a completely different set of people than the radio announcers for same.
They do hire different people to do radio and TV. How ridiculous would it be to listen to a radio play-by-play announcer say something like, “Look at this instant replay?”
Indeed, each different network (be it a radio station or a TV channel) has their own commentators on site. Hence the extremely large media box. The NFL or any teams do not provide their own commentary feed.
For many years, Los Angeles Lakers basketball games were “simulcasted” - the same commentators did the radio and TV.
Chick Hearn was the mainstay play-by-play person of this practice. He did have to give more detail than you’d normally get on a TV broadcast (because he was also speaking to the radio audience), but I thought Hearn was actually quite effective. The Lakers only stopped simulcasting in 2003, shortly after Hearn died.
According to wiki, simulcasting of sporting events was relatively common until the 1980’s, when it largely fell out of favor. The article mentions that the LA Dodgers still simulcast Vin Scully for three innings of west-coast games, and that three NHL teams still do it (Dallas, Buffalo and Nashville).
The Dallas Stars do it too - I like hearing Ralph and Razor no matter what. They’re good at what they do, and you don’t ever feel like you’re missing out on the radio. Generally, it feels a bit redundant when watching on TV, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. The voices of those two says “hockey” to me.
EDIT: I think for local broadcasts of the Rangers - just on the ex UPN station or whatever, they use the radio announcers too, but I could be wrong.
That seems odd to me. Anecdotally – I have an uncle who is a big hockey fan and who lives in western New York. I can specifically recall him saying that he hated the TV announcers, so when he watched a Sabers game he’d turn the volume off and listen to the radio announcers instead.
When I’m in Japan during NFL season, I often catch a re-broadcast of a Sunday game on the following Thursday. The second audio program carries the original English, but the primary is in Japanese. The Japanese commentators speak far less, leaving long periods of silence during the game. It’s strange. Even on the English track, there are periods during the [American network] TV breaks where you get the video feed, but no audio (or sometimes murmured comments and paper shuffling).
I dimly remember the no-commentator NFL experiment game, but I think it would take a lot for me to get used to not having the voice-over during most sports. And, it’s helpful for those of us who are manic channel changers. With the time-shift channels, I can usually catch three of each early and late Sunday afternoon NFL games, and it’s helpful to have hints as to what’s been going on in the few seconds I’ve missed since the last channel flip. :o