To be fair to TNT, if a European TV station using their own announcers to broadcast MLS, the Concacaf Champions League, or the Gold Cup, they don't have to worry about what to say if fans attack players. People who broadcast news might have training on what to say about mass shootings, violent protests, major road closures, and natural disasters; but people who broadcast sports probably don't think about that stuff. To some people, sports is an escape from problems. If there's something good about soccer not being more popular in the USA, it's not having fans be violent and/or have prejudice chants. Even if NBCSN's studio people have not seen soccer-related violence in person, at least some of them have lived in England and are going to know more about soccer-related violence than people who haven't lived outside the USA. If TNT hired English people who know more about soccer to work in their studio, some people would criticize TNT for not using Americans. I'm not saying TNT couldn't have been better, but you can't expect them to be as good as NBCSN about covering things that hopefully never happen in the USA.
Umm... Holden, Howard, Edu all played in England. And Nash is a very savvy worldly dude. Personally I think the criticism laid on B/R is not so much on the studio personnel, but rather on the production team/managers.
I enjoyed the post game show this week. Lots of highlights, succinct analysis. I thought it was fine. One location for everybody is better than two.
The matches on Univision are simply unwatchable! I wonder how much money Turner made from people saying “F—- it! I’m just paying the $3” midway through matchdays. Absolute clownville over on Univision!
Unwatchable? That is just going way too far. Having games on Free OTA television has been a God send for me.
Too many fans are spoiled, Homie. Can't really say much than that. UDN streams on their website are usually smooth for me and their TV coverage murders Turner with ease...
I wonder about the style used by Univision on just about everything they produce as entertainment, they are not stupid business people, they must do a lot of marketing research and find that this is what most people want to see and hear, it's not my style I watch on mute because I'm a soccer fan and they have the most games, my eyes are on the game my ears on music.
The video production is fine, so in that sense it's watchable, the problem for me it's the childish commentary as if they are communicating with a feeble mind audience.
Oh, I mute the commentary on all channels. There was one game (must have been paok-ajax) where right when I put the game on, the color guy said that the most beautiful women are Greek, and the play by play guy said that he says that about the local women in every game they broadcast. That was especially bad, but no commentary has ever contributed to my enjoyment of a match.
I personally don't care if the commentators are speaking Navajo and screaming off the top of their lungs and singing show tunes. What happens on the field is what matters to me. Not what a silly commentator says.
Maybe it's a good thing my Spanish is so terrible Univision's deal for the Champions League has been immense. Means I can authenticate in to any match I want, usually on mute, alongside TNT coverage while I work.
It'd be cool to watch a game in Navajo though. The only thing I know about that language is the Word War II code talkers.
For those who watch UCL matches on Unimas, do you get it in SD and 3x4 format? That's what I get, and I thought all channels are in HD format nowadays. The only other channel in my cable package that comes in SD and 3x4 is CNBC World.
On DirecTV in the SF Bay Area, I get both the local OTA affiliate (KFSF) and the national Unimas feed in HD.
I watched 2 minutes. Stopped it and flicked over to a stream on b/r live. Hopefully the replay is America announcing free
Man, that was pretty bad. Seriously, I don't care if your a Spurs fan. Just call the game. And they'll be doing the ManUtd game today as well. I don't understand why they simply just don't go with the standard English language broadcasters, anything would be better. Fail.
At least TNT flew them over to call it (and down to Valencia today). But yeah, not sure what the advantage is. Does TNT think that Nash's wider sports profile will help them draw more flies?
Nothing is more American than a Canadian NBA player calling a couple of Champions League matches involving English teams. It is so bad it is good. I love it. U-S-A!