News: ESPN $$ benefit from US advancing/General ESPN broadcasting critique

Thanks for the link. A couple thoughts:

1. So many "main stream" media and non-fans have been giving this WC a fair shot. I am SO SO glad that Donovan scored that game-winner. I really, truly (not joking) believe that this WC could have a mini-Miracle on Ice effect on the game of soccer in the US. Unless we lose to Ghana like 4-0 on Saturday. We've managed to suck a lot of neutrals in with the way our group games have gone down. It's not gonna change anything over night, but this is a big step for the game. This is way different than WC 2002 IMHO... this is the US doing it in the Twitter and Facebook universe. And the game times have been a little more agreeable. Much bigger buzz this time around, I don't think anyone can argue that.

2. I've loved ESPN's coverage so far. I've particularly love Ian Darke's play-by-play. And I think Tyler and McCoist have been great as well. Think about this: for all of the "it'll sound weird with a British man calling the US games" .... how often have I heard a neutral comment on it? Not once. These clips have been going non-stop on TV and the internet, and I haven't heard one newbie question why ESPN is employing Brits to call all of the games. Why? Because when the PbP man does a quality job, you don't notice the extraneous things like that. You notice the game because that is what he is directing you to do.

So glad ESPN went with this broadcasting crew. I think the lead men are doing a great job. I would agree with the thread starter that guys like Harkes have been disappointing. Especially Harkes with the constant Martyr syndrome. Give it a rest! Overall .. great job ESPN though!

 

While we're critiquing the broadcasters, I'm also kind of surprised how quickly Darke has shifted into his "USA are getting screwed in this tournament" narrative. I thought the Brits would be 100 percent objective -- almost boringly objective -- but he's really put a lot of emotion into it, which is good. and he's almost sounded like a USA homer at times. which has surprised me!

 

I think the obvious support he's giving the USMNT is one reason there hasn't been as much critique of the "non-American accent" during the WC. If the announcers were being "neutral" and not showing emotion for the USMNT, then there'd be more of the types of complaints folks (including me) had when the pbp teams were announced.

 

Such a vast improvement over the 2006 coverage. I do agree that the color commentary has been below par, but that would be my only real complaint so far.

 

I've been delighted at the broadcast coverage. I agree the color guys have been a little disappointing, but the rest - PBP, studio, etc - has been phenomenal. In fact, I think the exceptional quality of the PBP and studio work will help a lot of new fans understand the game, and be entertained. Gullit has been great.

Can we drop Harkes for Kyle Martino? Apparently Martino has been stellar on the radio, and I've liked his color work quite a bit in televised MLS games.

Also, ESPN3 is the bee's knees. My only complaint - the quality on the PIP stream is really, really poor.

 

agree, martino is real good...

he's been doing the union matches with jp, and even jp hockey style doesn't deter martino quality...

color guys are fairly good, clearly better than the usa option...

if harkes is getting better paired with giuys who know what they're doing....

ian darke.....english equivalent of cantor...quite spontaneous with his calls

 

Bar owners. I'm betting that alcohol sales yesterday were up about 10,000% over the typical Wednesday morning.

Look at the big 3 sports in America. In basketball, there's a ton of scoring, so you can't compare to soccer. Baseball is a unique kind of sport. You're not trying to get a ball into an area to score. Football is the closest comparison. But the ESSENCE of football and soccer couldn't be more different.

In football, there's a play every 30 seconds or so, and either the defense wins or the offense wins. (OK, some plays are neutral but you get the point.) It's 3rd and 2, and either they make the first down or they don't. One team or the other makes a little bit of progress toward victory. It's a cumulative game.

Soccer is NOT a cumulative game. It's very binary. In football, the offense would never consider any play in which they don't score as a failure. But in soccer, you either score or you don't. (OK, attacking and consequently drawing yellow cards sort of undercuts my point, but you know what I mean.) The tension in soccer is ENTIRELY DIFFERENT from what you have in football. It builds and it builds and it builds, but you know what? There's no guarantee it EVER gets released.

And that's why the ALG game was so perfect. If you only knew a little about soccer, you could still understand the stakes, understand the Dempsey non-goal, the close chances we kept missing, wondering if it EVER was going to happen...and then GGGGGGGGGGOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLL!!!!

I like the NFL. One thing I like about it is, it's very rare to have a sucky, totally uninteresting game. But by the same token, it's very rare to have an epic event that enthralls you, and that's because the tension gets so, so diffused over the game. Soccer is the reverse...a bad soccer game isn't rare, and it's REALLY REALLY boring compared to a bad NFL game. But a good soccer is so so so much better than a good football game. And even a classic like the Giants-Patriots Super Bowl isn't as good as the ALG match.

I don't want to come across as saying soccer is better than the NFL. It's a matter of taste. But even allowing for that, the "bell curve" of bad-to-good games is much flatter for soccer. You have to wade through a fair amount of dreck to get those great games. Again, this game demonstrated this like nothing else I could imagine. Even if the US plays an epic game in the knockout round, we can't go from failure to success in 10 seconds (I checked the time...10 seconds after Howard had the ball we scored.) We can go from losing to tying or tying to winning, but can't go from failure to success.

I agree. I think this will have a real, legitimate effect, not because we won and advanced, but HOW we won and advanced. We won in a quintessentially soccer manner.

One last thing...around the right kind of person, the kind of person that would understand the analogy, I say that scoring in soccer is like a woman's orgasm. It's not predictable, and it's not inevitable, and it's frankly more than a little random.

 

Nobody's mentioned them yet, so I want to add that Roberto Martinez has been great in the studio, and Adrian Healey in the PbP role.

 

One last thing...around the right kind of person, the kind of person that would understand the analogy, I say that scoring in soccer is like a woman's orgasm. It's not predictable, and it's not inevitable, and it's frankly more than a little random.

and it can be multiple?

 

One last thing...around the right kind of person, the kind of person that would understand the analogy, I say that scoring in soccer is like a woman's orgasm. It's not predictable, and it's not inevitable, and it's frankly more than a little random.

and it can be multiple?

Actually the scoring/orgasm analogy has always been used for soccer and that is why it amuses me when soccer haters in the US say they get the game but it is boring because the scoring is low.
The difficulty in scoring means a goal often brings a release of tension and feeling of ecstasy and there is so much more to the game to admire than just goals anyway.
If people find soccer boring it is just not their game but why hate on it?

 

Regarding the studio work, I just wish there was more of it. There are so many different talking heads and they give them such little time to discuss the games. The highlight packages that are shown are really short, too. The World Cup-themed intros and outros seem to take up an unncessesarily large amount of the time. Add in the obvious commercial length, and I just wish there was a little more substance.

 

I have to admit that I was a little worried during the opening game (South Africa - Mexico) when Efan Ekoku demonstrated his lack of knowledge of the offside rule and Martin Tyler remained curiously silent. Perhaps Tyler didn't want to make his colleague look like an idiot by correcting him...

Since then, I've been pleasantly surprised but I don't think any of the color guys have really distinguished themselves (with the possible exception of Ally McCoist).

 

Well sorta, I guess. But a woman's orgasm tends to roll (throughout the body), and not peak (i.e. come to a point). On the other hand a man's orgasm is an explosion (literally and figuratively) and a complete release.

 

Yea Efan has not impressed me at all. He has messed up a couple things.

And its hard to get around his name. (sorry) But when they say I'm here with "F'ing" Ekoku, I keep having to say "what did he just say?"

 

Ditto. I give ESPN's color guys/analysts C's, probably upgraded to C+ because of McCoist. I give the play-by-play guys A-/B+.

I always liked Darke, but his call of Donovan's goal (and minutes before) was outstanding. ESPN's money was well-spent on him; it's exactly what a moment like that deserved. Precisely the right mix of English no-BS directness and dry simplicity with his own excitability that complimented the moment perfectly. Plus, I just think that somewhere in the American subconscious, hearing an Englishman get that excited about such a crucial US goal somehow vindicated it. (ie "It wasn't only exciting because it was an American moment, it was exciting because it was a great moment, period. And it was American!") I'm speaking not of serious American soccer fans, I'm speaking of the casual/newbie fans that have been packing the bars and cheering wildly for the past couple of matches.

 

It's easy to forget to look for the GK, since 99.9% of the time, he's one of the two players keeping the attack onside. Tyler should have noticed the GK was out and stopped Efan from making a jackass out of himself.

 

Agreed on both counts. Not sure what to make of Shaun Bartlett, he hasn't wowed me but he hasn't been Harkes-esque annoying either.

 

Well, they ARE getting screwed with cards and goals called back. If the announcer weren't outraged, it'd be an outrage.

Absolute ditto on Roberto Martinez. He has been fantastic! Its been cool that some of his Wigan players are playing in the cup and doing well also. He's reacted to that with class.

 

One thing I'd like to note. . .

I've been watching the WC with a lot of Europeans and South Americans. While the announcing has been good-to-middling at some points, they have pointed something out to me that ESPN beats the entire world at -

THE CAMERA WORK

They have been FLOORED - not exaggerating - at how good the camera work is. The close-up slo-mos on the replays have been fantastic, every touch, every foul - it's like they're telepathic.

 

There was a great slo-mo shot of a Slovakian about to take a bite out of the Jabulani!

 

Well, that's a FIFA feed. And you are correct about how great the camera work is - the incessant super close-up slo-mo replays of the coaches' and players' reactions.

 

Roberto Martinez has been the class of the whole shabang.. he's been great.
Jurgen has been underused, but he's been pretty good as well.
Macca has had moments, nothing particularly positive or negative to say about him in all honesty.
Gullit started really weak, but has gotten much better. He's just not that well spoken ultimately.
I still hate Lalas.

One thing I've been wondering, is why Janusz hasn't been involved at all... I think he's pretty good and I'd welcome him in the studio.

Ley has been ok, but honestly given that he's the most experienced "soccer" guy in the studio from the American ESPN perspective, I was expecting him to be more comfortable and authoritative with his delivery. I feel like he has had a rough time with pronunciation and general "club IQ."

Both Tirico and Fowler (who I generally love) are clearly out of their element - but they are serious professionals and have done will to mask their deficiencies when it comes to covering this foreign sport.

One thing that seems curious about the studio show stuff, is that with great frequency the on-air talent and the producers seem to be out of synch when going through highlights... Like the hosts don't really know what they're about to be looking at and they're often ready to describe the wrong piece of the action. Anyhow...

Darke has been a joy
Tyler has been - Tyler. (Which is good for me.)
Healy has been just fine.
Rae remains my number 1 favorite for the authority with which he speaks, the excitement he manages to convey, and his ridiculous (it's obvious at this point) thorough approach to the pregame studying.

Harkes drives me nuts - mostly because he butchers the English language constantly and says annoyingly awkward things over, and over, and over again like "His energy, has been excellent."
Okoku in spite of that offsides blunder, I think has generally been good
McCoist has been great
Mustoe has been great

 

The Color still needs to improve but as a whole... the Vast you speak of is akin to the distance between Earth and Alpha Centauri.

thankfully we will never have to revisit the days when we felt lucky if we got the games in real time and not on tape delay

 

I don't like Tyler and I hope Darke gets the final. The commentators are also fairly weak but whatever.

Overall, ESPN has done a great job.

Look forward to an amazing Brasil 2014. But this tournament isn't over yet.