Man you guys are kind of a tough audience, I pulled up the pre-show and game on the DVR last night and it was fine. Cal has a couple nervous things he'll notice when he watches that he'll take care of but I actually thought it was ok. Refreshingly paced, up beat ... if this is the worst it will probably ever be I'll take it.
I thought the same thing. I didnt think it was bad at all. I thought it was better than our pregame shows when we were with Metrosports.
I think the announcing duo for the Ochocinoc trial are actually doing pretty well today. Cal brings up some good points and critical but fair questions about the whole thing.
I watched the reserve match with Ocho and I noticed that the team has a very good commentator. Cal Williams calls a good match and someday, he will be up there with Arlo White, who I think is the best commentator in the league.
Much much much better this week. Addressed all the negatives and everything came together a lot more positively. I'm really liking Cal's PBP. He looked like he was a little bit more well rested. I also have to chuckle every time Cal has to say "Budweiser: A Great American Lager". I just imagine him rolling his eyes or making puke faces while he says that.
I laughed at "Even with half an arm ... Teal Bunbury is still dangerous" ... and VancYouver -- was good stuff overall, very happy with the PBP.
My sound on the Direct Kick package didn't kick in until the 32 minute or so, but I like Cal as the PBP guy. Pretty fun to listen to.
You got Cal on direct kick? Interesting. On Matchday Live we got stuck with the not very knowledgable duo from Vancouver - who at one point commented that Nielsen had 'a clean sheet and a shutout thus far' as though they were two different things. MDL really needs to let us select which audio feed to take, or default to using the audio feed for whichever team is the away team - since it's got to be more likely that people watching on MDL are away fans than home fans, who are way more likely to be going to the games in person. 3 games into the season, and I still haven't gotten to hear Cal and Sasha's broadcast yet.
i realized last night that the archive for the Chicago game had Cal and Sasha, they weren't nearly as bad as others had lead me to believe
Thanks for pointing that out. I'll have to check it out tomorrow. I had no idea the archive would let you watch games that were under black-out previously.
Still not enjoying Sasha's long rambling answers to Cal's questions. I wish Sasha would answer in one short sentence and they can move back to the action. Instead three sequences occur on the pitch and Sasha is still rambling on ...
this isn't a huge deal to me, but it's something i've noticed. i wish that when our team was being referenced (especially in games since it'll be said 10-20+ times), we'd either be referred to as just "sporting" or "kansas city" or even just "kc." "sporting kansas city" and "sporting kc" is such a mouthful, and no offense callum, but it sounds even moreso with the english dialect of fully pronouncing every single letter. i know i'm nitpicking, and this is after i feel that callum has easily doubled or tripled the quality of our broadcasts from previous years, but i wanted to put it out there to see if anyone shared the thought. again, i'm just talking in general, even though i know i've mentioned cal twice. can we just leave "sporting kansas city" for only the formal usage? EDIT: i guess maybe i shouldn't have put it in this thread since i was meaning to be more general about it, but at the time, it was listening to the commentary that made me want to post this.
I think it was Gooch I was chatting about this to -- or maybe somebody on the coach to Chicago. I think they still have him reinforcing the branding ... and he is very deliberate about how he says it, very clearly, very slowly. It does get old a bit because it simply doesn't flow ... Sporting KC is fine, KC is fine, Sporting is fine ... It'd be just the same if everytime Wolves got the ball we had to listen to Tyler choking out "Wolverhampton ...... Wanderers .... FC ... regain possession". We are nitpicking, weirdly this minor minor niggle is the only thing that I don't like about Callum's work. Sasha is even growing on me and I never thought that would happen but the two are clicking and getting better I think. Nice to have somebody who has played in the booth with Callum, I actually think Sasha reads the games pretty well. I still think the lead in graphics and music are complete poo. I wish we could use a derivative of the slowmo ads in their place.
Last night vs C-Bus was the first time I've gotten to watch our broadcast (I watch via MDL and all of them have been the other team so far). I thought the PBP was great (just wish he'd had a better performance to call). SV's analysis is good, but a bit rambling. Hopefully that will get better. Unfortunately I don't get a lot of pre and post game so no comment on that. Overall a huge improvement over last season. Especially where PBP is concerned. No disrespect to Dave.
I've been waiting to comment on the over all production of the games because I knew it would improve with time. Like a lot of you I was disappointed by the first broadcast for numerous reasons. One of those was that when Sasha and Cal were sitting in front of the green screen doing their analysis is was obvious that Cal was much more in the fore ground than Sasha, which created a real eye sore in my opinion. They corrected this very quickly and now they're standing - and standing the same distance from the camera. Also, on the Sunday show, when they would do their packages, the audio was always out of sync, which was maddening. This continued on for several games, and is really annoying because this is a mistake that shouldn't be repeated. The only real beef I have right now is their 'in studio' stuff. I hate green screen. But it can be done better. Most notable from last night was when SV and CM were chatting with Crew stadium in the back ground, and when they would 'kick it' over to Josh W. over in the 'studio'. SV and CM were in front of a green screen the whole time but it was barely noticeable. With Josh W. on the other hand, it was painfully obvious he was in front of a green screen. I didn't understand how there could be such a difference (other than it is plainly obvious that in studio back ground was computer produced). But my girlfriend (her degree is in recording arts)made the comment that when SV and CW were filmed in front of Crew stadium that they were filmed by an HD camera, and when they filmed Josh W. it was probably with an SD camera. There's a bad, green halo visible on JW. So that's why the Sunday show, and their packages from the 'studio' look like a high school production in the 90's. So, yeah, the production has improved. But things like audio being out of sync should not happen and I'm somewhat surprised that they're still filming with an SD camera - but I can only assume the budget is very small. If they beg, borrow or steal an HD camera, I believe we'll see the best they can do for right now. From the 30,000 foot view of things, I really like what Cal brings to the table. He and Sasha are becoming much and more comfortable with each other. So I really hope once some revenue is generated by the stadium the FO can throw some more money to production quality. And after a couple of seasons of Sasha and Cal working together, we might have a very tight crew, making everything looking and sounding top notch.
So did they say something during the game last night about what's going on with Sasha? Was just watching Off the Pitch and they said that it was Sasha's last broadcast for a while...
Brian Kilmeade for Sasha? Didn't see this one coming. I assume this is just for this weekend, since the game in in New York. I hope this doesn't result in a lot of on-air chatter about non in-game stuff this week.