Its borderline childish from almost from minute 1. O'Brien starts off by saying 'there is nothing Salt Lake would rather do then to beat Colorado tonight'. Oh really Dave? You mean they actually want to win the match? Its like 90% bull shit from these guys. Its not good. Nor will it ever be good from a soccer fans perpective. I guess we should just be glad these match are on TV and reduce our expectations. They are not going to do a regular soccer broadcast you'd get from England or the Champions League or the passion of South American broadcasts; we are gunna get three guys verbally masturbating over the topic of the week with a game dropped in behind them. It is what it is....
The quality of the commentary is inversely related to the number of people providing it. I came to this realization watching NFL games, but it's true for all sports. Sometimes 2 commentators are better than 1, but 3 are never better than 2, and all sideline reporters should be given different jobs or let go.
You've got to be kidding me. That's the exact same crap announcers do with every single sport. Listen to any major sport and you'll hear stuff like.... "The Bulls really need the win tonight to get out from this losing streak" "The Yankees are aiming for a sweep to put a major dent in the Red Sox season" "The Falcons haven't beaten the Cowboys in 8 years and are hoping to reverse that trend tonight" or whatever. Yeah, RSL wanted to win -- they haven't won a single game all season. And, to be honest, they probably are much more desperate for a victory than the Rapids were; much like DCU winning last Sunday was very much big deal to them given they were winless and falling rapidly behind in the standings. Look, I'd like to see them cut down on the personal interest stories and hate that last night was the "Freddy Adu show", but you're going to get certain trite, meaningless fluff from any sports broadcast. It's just not gonna change.
What makes you think ESPN knows how to attract new fans to soccer? Have they done it in the past and have this great marketing scheme that works at getting viewers? I don't know that much about marketing but I know one thing whatever these guys are talking about A. Makes me watch Real World reruns and B. won't have joe shmo tune in during the Bulls v Pistons halftime. Everything happening last night goes opposite to gaining new fans. I became a fan of soccer because of watching EPL games because when I would watch MLS games back in the day I found the excitement as great as your average Celeb poker match. There is a reason TV ratings are so great for SKYSPORTS. IT's because they make their broadcast F'n entertaining. Whats happening on ESPN IS NOT ENTERTAINING. I understand you have to work with a subpar product on the field but why can't you at least make it seem like whats happening is Entertaining. No causual fan cares what car Bruce Arena drives to pick up his half retarted little brother from the retard daycare. OK thats all I got. I hope one day SKYSPORTS invests in the United States and shows us how to broadcast a damn MLS game.
Exactly. It will continue to to pretty much suck. Thats fine. I can live with that. I am not complaining, simply making an observation and offering an opinion. And when I watch Prem matches or Champions league the commentators are 10x better (Tommy Smyth does both and does a much better job for the C League than for MLS). It doesnt HAVE to suck, we suck by choice. But this is America, we are just gunna have a fluffier, weaker style here. Thats how it goes. When we want Mexican food, we go to ChiChi's, not El Esperanza. We like to water stuff down. That's how we do things here. And thats fine, when in America, do like the Americans... And for the record... DOB didnt explain WHY RSL would want to win, he just said they would want to beat Colorado tonight. No context at all from what I heard. It was just a blanket statement.
ESPN is quickly becoming to sports, what MTV is to music. They're forgetting what made them popular in the first place, and trying too hard to water everything down and entertain everyone. Last night's game had the feel of some bizarre reality TV show about 3 guys who like to go to soccer games. Only when they get to the game they forget why they're there in the first place and spew random gibberish for two straight hours and pay no attention to the game in front of them.
That's what is so frustrating. Just a small percentage change in the approach of the broadcast could be 100% better. The claim is the chit-chat is to appease the casual fan. But what casual fan is going to sit in front of the TV and listen to guys talk about everything but what's happening on the field? NFL Announcer: "Chad Johnson catches the screen pass from Palmer...it's a foot race with the safety...he's at the 40...the 30...the 20...one man to beat...say, did you know Chad Johnson is a big soccer fan? He was in a recent ad with David Beckham during the Super Bowl. He also likes pudding, Care Bears, and his momma loves him bunches." How often would that occur? Exaggerated analogy, perhaps, but that's kinda what it's like sometimes.
absolutely not. i have no idea why people are so averse to hearing interesting things about the guys kicking the ball around. hearing about what college they went to, what national teams they played for, what kind of car they drive, and their hoibbies... it brings me more into the game. the game itself is easy to follow. i can see the cross being hit into the box, and I can see the header going over the bar. I didn't need a commentator to tell me. and it's not like there is no play by play going on. The storytelling and pbp seem to be about 50/50. but the way some posters complain here it seems like they think it's 90/10 in favor of storytelling.
Thats a pretty good analogy. You might even be able to take that analogy further to include all of Americas professional sports landscape. Less sport more schick.
If you think about when ESPN started, they had no contracts with most major sports. They made their name and survived on niche sports. I remember back in the early 80s they made Australian Rules Football a hit in this country just by showing it in its raw form, untouched. No fancy US commentary. Direct feeds like FSC gets now with EPL, Serie A and Argentina. Granted the TV and sports landscape was much different then, but they didn't have to explain it to people, they just naturally got curious and picked up the game from there.
You're right. It's not 90/10. It's not that they're not telling some interesting things at times, it's when they're telling it. This game doesn't have the natural breaks that the other majors do, yet they try to force those things in there instead of timing them better so they don't interfere with the flow of the game. If you think about the great PBP guys of all time in sports, it's their exciting and dramatic descriptions of what is being seen on the TV that makes them memorable, not the off-field filler they use. Yes, a header may fly over the crossbar but you don't know that it might be the game-winner or a goal of the year candidate when it's crossed. Ching's bicycle kick last season was nothing more than a simple cross into the box that turned into a memorable goal. As a PBP guy wouldn't you want to know your call of that important moment was a thrilling description of the play itself, being in the moment, than one of you talking about a player's hobbies who is on the other end of the field?
well, i'm just glad i get FSC, Direct Kick and Telefutura. while the announcers for all these games pose their own set of issues, at least they're listenable. it's amazing how they've taken the one national ESPN2 game and made the announcing insipid, inane and impractical. yea, Wynalda has the occasional straight-talkin' insight, and DOB occasionally sounds like he's actually learnign soccer and Smith is who he is (I've always had a fondness for Tommy), but this 3-headed booth has become tyrannical amongst other things and bad announcing at that bad a level drives away viewers, one would think, rather than draw them in. i know it's only my opinion but it always amazes me when the emperor has no clothes. most people can see it (or hear it in this case), yet the powers that be still think everything's okay. again, i know it's only my opinion but at this point i don't know how else to express it without sounding dire. like i say, i'm just glad (feel very lucky, actually) i get all the other games so i can watch MLS at least with serviceable announcing. i asked this in the other thread: but if the announcers aren't going to pay attention to what goes on on the field, why should the viewer? there's something nonsensical about it...
Exactly right. They give the impression that the game is boring by not paying any attention to it. GutBomb, go watch a highlight clip from a Thursday night game on MLSnet. Heck, watch the Rapids-RSL one from last night. Count how many times the announcers are talking about something other than whats happening on the field, telling a story etc, during the HIGHLIGHTS of the game.
Now instead of storytelling if they gossiped on the players like entertainment E. That would be watchable!
Its clearly telling the the viewer in an unspoken way the game isnt worth watching. They send this message every single week. Weird way to treat a sport that claims to be trying to appeal to 'soccer fans'
In another thread a while back, the discussion was about how to attract people to the MLS game. You had the "MLS Fans" who were going to tune in no matter what, the "soccer fan/Eurosnob", who loved the game but not this particular version of it, and then the "You're a fan, you just don't know it yet" crowd. It would seem that the next segment to go after would be the "soccer fan/Eurosnob" since they already have an interest in the game. Wouldn't in be better to broadcast in a somewhat Euro style that they are accustomed to, rather than the "Up Close and Personal/Behind the Music" style we get now?
Take a look at what toronto fc has done...so far they have an excellent support base...based on that concept of Euro viewers interested in European league but now telling these people that they could either watch whats going on in Europe or watch the same thing here in North America.
Wow I didnt think it take till post 30 before someone connected ESPNs commentary style with americas horrible culture.
Watered down, 'safe', cookie cutter, boring, dumbing down to the lowest common denominator maybe, but I never said horrible.....
I got bad news for you: ESPN, MTV, CSI, American Idol and Wal-Mart ARE American culture. Get over it. Still, I have said on many of these posts that the ESPN boys just talk to damned much. They never let the game breathe, or develop. FSC's broadcasts are superior in every way. If you listen closely though, O'Brien is getting better. He's starting to talk like someone who actually knows what is happening on a soccer field. Now if he could just quit repeating himself (must have recounted the "two own goals" every five minutes last night) he would be fine.