Posted on 07/06/2006 8:55:05 AM PDT by stainlessbanner
The World Cup is generating record television audiences for soccer in the U.S. But some diehard fans think the coverage deserves a red card.
Walt Disney Co.'s ESPN and ABC have been hit with complaints from soccer devotees that their telecasts are unsophisticated and mistake-ridden. The popular Web site Big Soccer has a thread titled "Pick your favorite insane thing said by the announcers so far."
A major gripe: ESPN selected an announcer, Dave O'Brien, who had never called a soccer game before this year to serve as the tournament's lead play-by-play man. Some English-speaking viewers have switched to Spanish-language Univision, which has out-rated ESPN and its sister cable network ESPN2 on average for the tournament in Germany.
< snip >
"They're trying to give us all this information to show us how much they know," says Steven Cohen, who has bashed ESPN on his "World Soccer Daily" show on Sirius Satellite Radio. "All they're showing us is how much they don't know."
< snip >
The soccer executives opposed the appointment of Mr. O'Brien. Their argument: using an announcer unfamiliar with the sport might not help ratings but certainly could hurt them. "Would you ever put a guy who had never called a sport before ... in the World Series, the Super Bowl or the Olympics?" a senior U.S. soccer executive says. "Never."
(Excerpt) Read more at post-gazette.com ...
When it comes to commentary for soccer, less = more is a good rule to follow.
Nah. You gotta hear the crowd, that's part of the experience. And... it's one thing I think ESPN has done pretty well. The crowd's been mixed way up, so you can hear them, and there's been a couple of matches where the commentators actually shut up during some of the more intense moments.
(She should be. She was on the US womens' national team for years.)
Thanks for pointing it out. That team has won more world cups and Olympic gold medals than any other national team in the world. The simple reason is that the top US women's athletes play soccer, whereas the top male athletes play baseball and football (more lucrative in the US) and therefore our soccer players are not our best athletes. I wish to see a Bo Jackson, Michael Jordan, or Jerry Rice play soccer! Watch out world!
Everybody's getting the same basic pool feed. ESPN is then adding their own replays, announcer shots, and... (grumble, grumble)... graphics.
XM is excellent. ESPN is bad. ABC is the worst thing ever. On the weekends (if I watch the game live) I set up a TV in my garage and watched the game with XM blasting out of my car. I did not mind the dual audio, even with the 5 second delay on XM, because of the wonderful color and commentary from XM.
Does the article mention that ESPN has been showing the entire tournament in high definition? Bad commentating or no, I wouldn't switch, just because the picture is so far superior.
"And this in a nutshell shows everything that is wrong with Soccer. Germany Played a GREAT GAME --- A GREAT GAME!!!!. And what was the score after 118 minutes of them playing so GREAT --- 0 to 0. "
Maybe, you should consider horseshoes. You get points for being close there.
Al Michaels never called hockey before the 1980 Winter Olympics and he did very well at it.
I've been only a casual fan for years....not an intense follower of the game...
Here's another dumb question....some of the teams are called "United" as in "Manchester United," as opposed to "Manchester City."
Are the residents of Manchester City proper supposed to root for Manchester City, while those of the metro area root for Manchester United? Maybe I am missing the point entirely....
Dull is as dull does.
I hate it when that announcer keeps saying the score is nothing to nothing.
Any announer who says that should be fired. The score is zero to zero not nothing to nothing.
I don't watch it. It is the most boring crap in the universe. I was merely pointing out why most American's don't watch Einstien jr.
But thank you for your genuine concern over my viewing habits.
Teams usually get the name "United" when two or more teams merge, although I believe Man U is an exception.
But please continue to post about topics that you care, and clearly know, little about; we need the laughs!
Then there's those flippin' graphics!!!!
And the hugely excessive number of replays.
I just count my blessing's that it's on, it's live, and it's in high definition. And as everyone keeps pointing out, there's always Univision.
The absolute worst was when TNT carried the World Cup in 1990. They had multiple commercial breaks during gameplay. No really, they did.
And this comment shows everything that is wrong with soccer haters. It's the automatic assumption that score = excitement. If that were the case, the NBA would stomp every other sport into the ground, and Arena Football would have supplanted the NFL. Baseball fans would demand aluminum bats, juiced balls, and pitcher's mounds lowered to completely flat.
In any type of game where scoring is rare, each score -- even each opportunity for a score -- generates a huge amount of excitement. Some of the best baseball games are the 1-0 "pitcher's duels", where the low score simply increases the tension any time either team threatens to score. Compare that to basketball, with the exception of a game-winning buzzer-beater, each individual scoring play is pretty much lost in the noise of all of the other scores.
If you don't like soccer, that's fine -- you're more than welcome to have your own opinions. But the reasoning that its because there isn't "enough" scoring is just silly.
ahhh crap, he doesn't have the H in "John"
ouch...
Good thing I didn't try to put Joe Morgan in the conversation. I would've spelled his last name with an e....
LOL
Actually, the way I look at it the less said about Joe Morgan the better. :)
Some of the networks which carry spanish language broadcasts of the Mexican national team's games also take mid-play commercial breaks.... though usually they're short breaks.
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