La Liga Coverage So far...

care to go into details for some of us that don't know what happened?

 

I'm curious to know myself. I watched the first half live, and just now I Tivo'd through the 2nd half a bit quickly. Transmission was fine, never went on the blink. Saw nothing "disastrous".

 

Oh so the title should have read. Why I don't dig GolTV's coverage so far....

 

I knew that would be the complaint.

While Phil & Ray aren't bad at all, I would prefer that they give us the world feed commentators whenever available.

If GolTV wants to pick up some domestic games, then by all means have Phil & Ray commentate those.

 

i fail to see the disaster here. Phil and Ray are not the greatest commentators. i get it. but they aren't the worst either. I watch the game for the game, not for the voices.

 

Ray and Phil wouldn't be half bad if it weren't for Phil. If you are doing PbP then do it.....don't need two color commentators at the same time. Someone should keep the general focus on the game. For multiple long stretches neither one bothered to mention a single thing about the game in progress, choosing to discuss tangentially related topics instead. It is infuriating. And, yes, I could simply turn the audio down....but I pay for a full broadcast, not half. Good commentary adds to the viewing experience, otherwise they wouldn't bother with it all, and just play games with crowd noise.

 

I pretty much agree with the use of commentators. I watched Real Madrid-Villarreal online and hearing Paul Breen Turner commentate was music to my ears. We'll see if GolTV allows its viewers to listen to him or gives us their own announcers when they show the game Tuesday night.
Having said that, I'm grateful to watch ANY La Liga match on television seeing as GolTV apparently had to battle ESPN Deportes for the rights. (I don't have access to ESPN Dep and want to record as many Barca games as possible) So I won't be hating on the announcers too much.

 

Actually, ESPN Deportes didn't put up much of a fight to get La Liga.

A "third bidder", however, was responsible for jacking up the price of La Liga in the US and Canada market in order to try to screw GolTV.

 

OK, who was the 3rd bidder?

I really prefer the direct feed myself. I can't stand when Phil calls the players by the wrong name, which happens alot.

Please Gol TV - we want Paul Breen Turner, and the other 2 commentators.

Leave Phil and Ray to the Domestic games or Central American games.

 

Maybe Phil and Ray are on vacation today -

 

phil did the "pre-game".

cescfabregas... if you let something like this bother you so much just mute the tv or listen to the spanish side of the commentary.

don't speak spanish? maybe you should learn.

to be honest the guy they had doing the barca game today is the guy i refer to as "the annoying guy" because i don't remember his name, and the way he talks is really annoying. He's spanish (i think) and speaks english in a nasal voice and has a very weird rhythm.

I don't let it ruin the game for me.

 

such drama.

mute and listen to radio marca or something.

 

If you also have access to the Spanish-language GolTV by all means watch that for La Liga. Even if you don't understand much Spanish you will still be pulled into the match by the commentators' enthusiasm & emotion. And keep in mind that since it's just soccer they're talking about they use a fairly limited vocabulary (there just aren't many ways to say ball, corner, shoots, foul, goal, etc.,) which you'll pick up w/o much, if any, effort in a very short time.

The big problem with US-based English-language commentators is that they try to apply the gridiron style to a completely different type of game. They are afraid of silence so feel compelled to talk non-stop for 90 minutes even when they don't have anything substantial to impart to the audience. Some of the guys I've heard on GolTV obviously follow the leagues and know what they're talking about yet their insistence on non-stop blather means they are often caught by surprise when a goal is scored which makes it a totally awkward experience for the viewer.

The guys on the Spanish side mostly concentrate on play-by-play rather than meaningless drivel and are able to build to a crescendo as the teams begin to threaten their opponent's goal. If you were in another room listening to the game as a kind of background noise, in English you'd have no idea of the rhythm of the game whereas, even if you don't understand Spanish, you would have a fairly clear idea of what's happening because the pitch & cadence of their play-by-play varies depending on what's happening on the field.

Contrary to the apparent philosophy of the American-based announcers (talk talk talk and more talk) most of the Spanish-language guys understand that their job is to act as a conduit between the action on the field and the audience at home. They draw you into the game. When done well it's almost an art. Of course some are better at it than others. I'm not going to pretend that all the Spanish guys are perfect but generally speaking they're far better than the Americans.

The Spanish style, though, is much harder to do in English, maybe because Spanish has more words ending with vowels so the language seems to flow better. So the best English commentators, like, IMO, Martin Tyler or Peter Brackley, talk less than the Spanish guys yet are still able to draw you into the action & excitement of the game in a more understated manner better suited to English by suddenly talking a bit faster, a bit louder and then understanding that since the goooooooooollll call is best left to Spanish they let the crowd do most of the talking when a goal is scored.

In contrast, the Americans seem to never be sure just what to do and end up either suddenly, awkwardly screaming or, even more embarassingly, attempt a poor imitation goooooollll while we at home stare at our shoes and hope the moment passes quickly.

Short off-topic note - the Euro-based guys who call most of the Bundesliga matches on GolTV (I've only seen one game where they used GolTV's announcers on the English side) are pretty good, especially the ageless Toby Charles. The English guys who call Serie A matches on TeleLatino (Canadian) are decent but Paddy Agnew would be better if he took the rocks out of his mouth and actually spoke into the microphone.

That said my favorite guys to listen to are Sid Lowe and Paul Giblin calling La Liga on WorldSport in English. And wouldn't you know it, they pretty much talk non-stop. Maybe it's because I'm starved for opinionated conversation about La Liga or maybe it's that these guys are both funny and knowledgeable while not bothering to conceal their hatred of Real Madrid - whatever, I think they're the best duo available on American TV. Go figure.

 

Well. Then. These thread should then be:

 

did you know who it was? if so, then what did you need the commentators for? and if not, they corrected themselves. i hear the pros in england mis-identify guys all the time. i hear the same thing anytime a commentator is not at the stadium because they are relying on replays. yeah it sucks that they don't use the commentary that's on the feed. maybe it saves them some cash, who knows. but it's not the travesty you are making it out to be.

 

I have a suggestion to you. Since it's more than a travesty, do NOT pay. STOP! Drop the service that you have and do NOT watch Serie A. Watch baseball.

You pay peanuts (GolTV only gets a few pennies from your subscriptions) for Serie A on a niche channel and you expect nothing less than the best quality? What a joke! Do you know the best quality sportscasting in this country is something you do NOT have to pay for? e.g. Super Bowl, World Series, NCAA finals, on the networks....

No one put a gun in your head and force you to pay for GolTV. If you think GoltV should guarantee you the best quality then by all means do NOT pay...