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 ...
Also, univison's coverage is about 3-5 seconds ahead of ESPN's.
I think we are in the 3rd leg of the World Cup. But the upcoming mountains will separate the men from the boys.
I like soccer but just like to give you guys a hard time.
ESPN's coverage of most sports sucks.
Their baseball commentators are the worst.
(yes, that was supposed to be a joke...)
BTW I think I know that guy in the kickball pic. He's from Tampa if memory is correct. We had to stretcher him off the putting green at a local PAR-3 last year.
Some don't try hard enough.
My brother loves big ladies but he is often disappointed when they don't want to workout with him. It seems he wants them big; but not too big.
I think it's the 5th inning, but no strong arm guy to be found.
If ESPN wanted ratings they should have put the Bush-bashing idiot commentator, Jay Mariotti, opposite guest color man, Ozzie Guillen. That might have livened up the 0-0 (PKs by who ever could still stand up) or 1-0 games.
More kids play soccer than any other sport. Guess your kids just sucked at soccer.
I'm not a big fan of offsides either. I think any pass made in the attacking 35 shouldn't be offsides.
Is the partnership still on the pitch?
Zoooooooooooooooooooooooooom.
That went right over my head
(cricket)
"Do you know who is on XM?"
They seemed to have 2 pairs of announcers, but here is their lineup:
http://www.xmradio.com/programming/xm_staff.jsp?ch=147
The best soccer announcers I have ever seen were when Fox Soccer Channel does the delayed broadcast of an English Premier League game letting one (knowledgable fan) from each team co-announce--or, ignore-the action). Fantastically infomative and a laugh riot at the same time.
Man City-Liverpool was a classic. They alternated between chit chatting about player trivia and team future moves, calling out players for doggin it, prasing when due and occasionally yelling at the ref.
Hoooo Hum!
splains zat!
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