Anyone else thinks ESPN/MLS whoever is in charge of this needs to keep a wider view of the field for most of the action? Especially with the highlights/replays. What usually happens is you see the player shoot in a closer view, the camera man loses the ball until he catches up with the ball and its in the back of the net. You never get a sense of the speed of the shot, or the general buildup to the play.
Yes, that's what all of us have been suggesting for years. Also, NO MORE CLOSEUPS DURING THE RUN OF PLAY.
maybe only showing games played on a real soccer pitch rather than a football field will help. it may sound petty but i think that rsl's pitch is just uncouth.
the closeups are called "tight" coverage, or "cutaways". They are used in almost every sport that is broadcast they are used because under the best circumstance they bring you closer to the action. The director and the camera operators have to know or have a feel for the game to make them work. The EPL coverage is sublime, because the game is part of the culture, and the people on the production crew all understand what the broadcast should look like. In the US you usually get directors who work on basketball or football, and think they can cut soccer the same way. What they dont understand, or can't feel, is the flow or rhythm of the game. That's why you get bad cuts like the ones you are talking about.
Get rid of Rob "Bush League" Stone and Eric "Look at me, hear me, I love myself" Wynalda and the telecast is already better. But in general, ESPN has horrible production values. Just look at hockey. Horrible commentators, horrible telecast, everything is bad, especially when comparing it to MSG (which has the best quality in all sports for every sport they do). ESPN just sucks.
No more "wired" players. No more interviews while play is going on. I'm glad Hans blew Heather Mitts off.
You beat me to it. Wired players is stupid and useless, what is it's purpose?!! Can someone please help me with that? ANd coach's corner, ugh, when was the last time you saw coach's corner and thought to yourself,"wow, im glad he cleared everything up for me..." Hans ignoring Heather was beautiful, let's see more of that in MLS, let's have all the coach's boycott COach's Corner!!
There needs to be more of those in-game Budweiser and Sierra Mist commercials. It seems the best scoring opportunities occur when these commercials are on and the game is shown in a 1" x 1" box. This way there are higher scoring games, and that's just what the general American public wants to be attracted to soccer, right? Higher scoring soccer games? Well, that's what my garbageman Doug Logan told me when picking up my trash the other day...
The Revs broadcast of NE/KC gave me vertigo. The continual "close-ups" during the run of play made it almost impossible to follow the freakin' game. Close-ups are for dead ball situations. MLS has been on the air for 10 years, and the Revs have likely broadcast more games than any other team, except maybe the Metros. They continue to have one of the worst visually presented games. When they're not doing closeups, they're continually changing camera angles. Enough already.
MLS should hire an experienced european football camera crew to direct the cameras for a couple of games and see if we notice.
Another thing is that I think we'll see the broadcasts improve as more SSS come on line. NFL stadiums aren't designed for soccer telecasts. The camera positions at most MLS games aren't comparable to what you usually get in Mexican, European, or South American games.
I don't know if it's coincidental, but the Revs are also one of the teams that doesn't use the Borg-like collective Winnercom production pool. They do their own thing. Whether you like it or not. Whether it's good or not. For my money, the combination of the visual presentation and Brad Feldman makes the Revs unwatchable.
Brad is a nice, stand-up, guy who knows his stuff. But I do have a problem with the team's PR director being the play-by-play man. Most team broadcasters are team employees. I accept that. I also don't mind local team broadcasters from being homers. However, I think that being both a broadcaster and the team's PR guy is stretching the boundaries a bit.
And can't communicate same as a broadcaster. He's simply not cut out for it. There are lots of nice, stand-up guys. My FedEx guy is a nice, stand-up guy. I'm not going to push for him to do games next week, though.
Also having the local team announcers do national broadcasts is bad. See any FSC game that involves the Galaxy (Like Miles and Sigi tonight).
I hate Crew's home broadcasts as the camera angle is entirely too low. (Frisco's cams seemed to be working fine however.) That and DCU's. Fire's could be higher but seems off to one side. But you've got a point about KC ... if not Colorado. Their problem is too few televised games. Of course, the quickest way to improve the quality of the telecast is to stop showing the league's crapiest teams.
I am actually getting hoarse from yelling at the TV while watching some fat guy on the bench picking his nose whiole play is going on, or being able to count Jay Heaps' nose-hairs while a ball is bouncing in the box... Why do the producers stick with those cameras while there is a goal coalescing in the opposite box? Just seems like ignorance/inexperience to me. But it does disgust me as a viewer...
Was Feldman the analyst for tonight's Revs/Wizards game? The play by play guy was wooden and uninspired, but the analyst was absolutely unbearable. What's worse is that you could tell he's a nice guy, so you just feel sympathy for his total lack of game calling ability and personality.
This is true - and I watch a lot of Revs games. Tonight's game though seemed especially bad with the zooms. Im not sure why they feel compelled to zoom in and zoom out every 2 seconds.
Believe it or not, but Brad has gotten a lot better with this. In the beginning it was unbearable, but he has definitely toned it down somewhat. Not saying it is perfect, but I do not notice it as much anymore (or I am just numb to it) What's funny is he is usually quite candid with his feelings of the Revs, sometimes pretty negative, during the Rev Radio show.