Who here thinks that MLS Breakaway should be a weekly program? In addition to entertaining us it would also fill a gap in NBCSN's daytime schedule.
I watched a fair amount of it, after the Fire v. KC debacle, and it was not bad. When they did a "breakaway" to a game, they usually gave the game enough time to follow what was going on. It looks like NBC may be getting behind MLS, at least for now. If you liked it, contact NBC Sports and tell them: nbcsportshelp@nbcuni.com
It would have been better if there had been a few more goals to cut to during the show. But either way, it was good as is and thanks to NBC for bringing us the show.
Very enjoyable coverage all day long.. Soccer doesnt have the instant gratification that Nfl and Nba have..all the same it was all very well done.
Very impressive debut and hope they have more of them. I like how they showed the last 10-15 minutes of each match. That helped keep it somewhat dramatic. Pretty cool that they got the Saborio goal live. Arlo White really shows that he has either learned a lot about MLS or has great researchers and Kyle Martino has improved ever since his soccer talk show debacle. While Arlo does indeed make anyone he work with better, Martino has really come into his own as an analyst. It was cool hearing them add commentary to a match and then switch to the local broadcasters. That added a nice touch. Too bad There weren't any goals in the first two matches to give them highlights to fawn over
Yea it was good but could have been better. It didn't help that the games were crappy. i think when they cut away, the announcer kept saying, here is what just happened a few moments ago. when a big play happens in the NFL (like outside of the redzone), it's unexpected, right? think a 50 yard pass. That's how soccer is. For the most part, you dont know when the next goal is. When this happens in the NFL, the guy doing the redzone channel says, let's take you to the Jets vs. the Dolphins. And bam, they show the play and act like it's live. I think Breakaway should have done that. It makes it more exciting. Also, the NBC announcers needed not to talk over it and just carry the audio from the feed of the broadcast. It drowned the crowd noise and it made it look like a highlight show rather than a live look in.
The 50 yard touchdown pass may be unexpected, but for the most part, it's pretty easy for the RedZone channel to anticipate something a score because of the very nature of the game. Teams are moving slowly, methodically, down the field. The likelihood of a score, whether its a touchdown or field goal, goes up the closer the offense gets. So it's easy for them to check out which game seems likely to produce a score soon. If they see a team is within 20-30 yards of the endzone, they'll show that game. And if there's multiple situations like that, they'll go with a double box, or a quadruple box if necessary. If they do miss something, they don't show it to you pretending it's live. They always point out, "meanwhile, this just happened in San Francisco a few moments ago. Nnamdi Asomugha with the interception, jukes the sh*t out of Percy Harvin, goes beast mode on Marshawn Lynch and dives over Russell Wilson into the endzone for another 49ers touchdown. And with the PAT, the Niners now lead the Seahawks 52-9 in the 3rd."
FYI, this is false. It's easy to notice when you're watching both RedZone and the game live. If you're just watching RedZone, then it makes no difference because it is "live" anyway and they won't show any spoilers. They are very good at this. As for MLS Breakaway, less Arlo and Kyle please.
What I said in the weekly thread stands: MLS Breakaway is a scheme to insert commercials into MLS games.
I wouldn't say always point it out. Yes I agree with your scenario and I've seen it done like that. But I've seen numerous occasions where they are showing say the patriots at the 20 driving to score. And then the guy would say let's take you to the giants game. And you know it's going to be a huge play because the giants are at the their own 30 and why would switch it from the Pats who are about to score. And then boom , Ahmad Bradshaw breaks a 70 yard run.
Obviously, the Breakaway show could never be 2 or 3 hours again, but I could see them instituting something like that for 30 or 60 minutes before a nationally televised game.
I agree with this. There is no way this could be for 2-3 hours every weekend because, one, NBCS was probably both short on programming and wanting to drum up interest in MLS on their channel. The second is this seems to undermine Direct Kick or whatever MLS calls it Sunday Ticket type package. Why should I, someone without a favorite team or local team, pay for a package when I get 3 hours of analysis with cut-ins to 4 or 5 games with my regular cable package?
I didn't get to see this show this week, even though I wanted to. I was attending a hockey game at the time. But I am interested in being able to take in a future version of this. The biggest problem I can think of is that if they're covering four games at once, they're probably missing out on eight fanbases worth of viewership, because those fans are most likely watching the game their own team is involved with in its entirety on their local stations.
I said elsewhere that MLS could (should) make this part of the DK and MLSLive packages. It's not needed every week. But on busy weeks when there's a whole bunch of games going on at once, they could offer this Breakaway show to cover all the overlapping games. The key is to make it a part of the DK and MLSLives packages and a reason to buy the packages -- not something that would compete with them.
I'd love to see it as a weekly or periodic thing on MLS. It would be good shoulder programming before or after an MLS game on NBCSN. It would be interesting if MLS would schedule 3-4 games to overlap in a certain timeslot to make it happen. I agree that the biggest issue would be taking away from Direct Kick/MLS Live, however, but it was well done and fun.
What you have to remember is that the Breakaway show only shows parts of certain matches, not the whole match. If you wanted to see the whole match that is what MLS Live and Direct kick are for. So this show takes nothing away from MLS Live or DK!
Negative. As a United fan I was able to watch the DC/New York game then tune into the Breakaway show later. I do understand your point, but if you are a fan of MLS you would watch the show just to see what is going on around the league.
Positive. I'm not watching MLS Breakaway to keep tabs on other matches if the one match I'm really interested in is taking place at the same time. I'd rather watch a soccer match than watch a show that shows fragments of soccer matches. Now, if my team's not playing, sure...