30 for 30

If you haven't heard yet, ESPN has been airing a plethora of sports-themed movies in a series they are calling 30 for 30.  I first came across the show about three months ago, watching a film about Reggie called, Winning Time: Reggie Miller vs. The New York Knicks.  The film was great, looking at Miller's interaction with Knicks fans and the City of New York in the spring of 1994 and 1995.  The series is the brainchild of ESPN.com columnist Bill Simmons, whose idea was to have well-known directors develop short films about significant sporting events from the past 30 years. Hollywood was quick to get involved, and the line-up now features movies from such prominent directors as Barry Levinson (Rain Man), John Singleton (Boys n' the Hood), and Ron Shelton (Bull Durham).  I decided I would be sure to watch more of these movies and I'd keep my eyes open for more 30 for 30.  Of course, I didn't come across one for quite some time, as the show doesn't have a regularly scheduled broadcast here in Canada.  And while modern technology like PVR's and on screen schedules make it as easy as pie to find, I am quite lazy so I didn't set anything up to record.

Flames TV

The Flames and Roger’s Sportsnet just announced a deal on Tuesday that would see cable outlet broadcast Flames games until the year 2020. They will broadcast at least 58 Flames games every year and be the clubs Official Television Broadcaster and digitial service provider. It was also announced that fans won’t have to “rely” on Flames Pay-per view for games not broadcast on Sportsnet West; hopefully meaning RSN took up the PPV games, so the team doesn’t have to rip fans off by making them pay $15.99 to watch ONE game on television.

The front page headline on the Flames website read: “NEW DEAL, MORE FLAMES ON TV.” Now doesn’t this sound odd, “MORE FLAMES ON TV.” The fact that every game isn’t broadcast on some local network is kind of a joke, isn’t it?

I am not saying every game on a single channel but every season, including the season that begins in October, there are one, two or three mid week, or god forbid Saturday night games, that are either blacked out in the city or unable to get it on local television.

I understand the CBC has some law in place forbidding any other Canadian team to have a broadcast on Saturday night, which is an ancient rule from a faltering Hockey provider in my mind, but I digress.
Doesn’t it seem like your back in the 80’s when you ask your buddy if he saw the game last night, and his response was, “No, it wasn’t on TV.”

Isn’t that insane??

We live in the most digital, information crazed, need it this second or I’m going to lose my freaking mind kind of world right now and local television can not fit it into their agenda to have all 82 regular season games broadcast in the city in which the team resides in.

I understand for teams south of the border where hockey isn’t the end all be all for most of its citizens and it wouldn’t make logical sense, but for the majority of CALGARIANS hockey is the tops, la crème de la crème, the bees knees, the cat’s meow of Sports popularity. Sure the CFL pulls some weight and the NFL, NBA and MLB have their days, heck even the NLL gets a bit of play, but Hockey is King in this city and it always will be.

I believe the only two cities in the NHL that broadcast every game are Toronto (LeafsTV) and Montreal (RDS), but I could be wrong. They are big markets with huge audiences and a lot of money, but how are Calgary, Vancouver, Ottawa and Edmonton so different when it comes to loving hockey. Calgary is so hockey crazed it's ridiculous. When a WHL team (Calgary Hitmen) can draw an average of almost 10,000 fans to a game in a city in which an NHL team plays, it says something about the cities thirst for hockey.

The desire to have every single game locally broadcasted is surely evident in this city and it’s about time that the NHL, the Flames and the television networks figure out a way to make sure that all games can be viewed from the comfort of one’s own home.

Make it so.

twitter.com/TSRNewman

Major Let Down

President Obama recently spoke about the BP oil spill in the gulf and said, “I am furious at this entire situation, because this is an example where somebody didn't think through the consequences of their actions." I share these sentiments and would like to borrow his exact words for my feelings over something equally as tragic; PGA Tour television broadcasts. If you don't mind, I would like to rant.

For the past several years, I've pretty much restricted all of my golf viewing to the four major championships. Many a week have gone by where someone would ask me if I had seen that shot on the weekend, referring to some nobody's miracle shot in some run-of-the-mill tournament like the John Deere 'Classic' or the Greater Wherever Open. My standard response has been, "No, I don't really watch golf outside of the majors." Of course they always ask why, and after catching some of this week's "Bridgestone World Golf Championship brought to you by Office Depot from the Firestone Golf Club, a Presentation of the Conglomeration that Brings you godaddy.com and Ford Motors," I remembered why.

When you're watching the four majors, you are blessed with two things; the best golfers in the world and the fewest commercial interruptions. The average golf tournament on the other hand has become completely unwatchable. I turned on the TV yesterday morning and came across the WGC Bridgestone Invitational, and while this tournament may have a similarly strong field to the four majors, it is such a contrived, corporate event, it's impossible to pique much interest.

To begin with, the four majors exist for a reason. The Masters was designed to simply host the best golf tournament in the world, featuring the world’s best golfers (mission accomplished). The US and British Opens are National Championships, while the PGA is the golfers' own Championship. The Zurich Classic in New Orleans, (which isn't a classic in the same vein as, say, Led Zeppelin’s music), is held because a company called Zurich wanted some ad time and the City of New Orleans was looking for some economic stimulus, while the PGA Tour was looking for a raison d’être. While that's inspirational, it doesn't really have the same cache as a National Championship and it never will.

The second problem with most PGA Tour events, and by far the most annoying problem is the saturation of corporate name dropping. It's absolutely unbelievable. The gold standard for a golf broadcast is of course, the Masters, which boats only four minutes of commercials per hour of coverage. Yes, that means they’re restricted to covering the tournament, which means I get to watch almost every shot without suffering through an endless parade of commercials (which are no longer necessary for bathroom breaks or beer runs thanks to the PVR). While the other three majors have more commercials than the Masters, they have far less than the average tournament, which can average over twenty-five minutes of commercial time per hour! However, corporate name dropping doesn’t end with commercials.

First there’s the leaderboard, which during most tournaments is brought to you by somebody. "And now let's take a look at The Honda Classic leaderboard, brought to you by the good people at Invesco...leaders in the world of investing." Wow that's clever, they 'brought' us the leaderboard, and they're leaders themselves! Brilliant! I'm thankful for the good folks at Invesco for doing us this favour, or we might never know who was actually in the lead. Then there are the little side segments, which are supposed to be of interest to a golfer, but really only to throw in a few sponsor names and avoid showing additional golf coverage. By these, I mean things like the "Know the Rules with washed up pro 'xyz', brought to you by Goodyear," segments, where Roger Maltbie or David Feherty explain to us how to drop a ball from a hazard without receiving any further penalties. That's fascinating, as I only hit it into five or six hazards each round, and am completely unfamiliar with this process. Not only does the segment bore me to death, it also usually ends with, "While we were away, Phil and Tiger both holed out for double-eagle, then dropped the gloves to determine who's shot was better. Now let’s take a look at the leaderboard brought us by…"

So yesterday morning, I turned the TV on around 10 in the morning and saw that Tiger had already finished and the leaders had not yet teed off. This meant there wasn't really anything to show, so the cameras decided to glue themselves to such dynamic personalities as Jim Furyk and Ben Curtis (the Statue of Liberty, who has more personality than ol' loopy, hadn't teed off yet). Spellbinding television to say the least. Everything was going fine, I was maintaining my sanity for the most part, until the clock struck 10:28 in the morning, and I was broad-sided with a fancy graphic announcing the golfnow.com Shot of the Day! Let me set the record straight; there were still 20 golfers who hadn't even teed off yet and Jim Furyk, who hit the SHOT OF THE DAY on the 2nd hole, was now on the 3rd hole. By my rough count, the field still had 500 holes left to play! 500! How, or rather why, do you determine the shot of the day at 10:30 in the morning, when half the goddamn field isn't even on the golf course yet!?

In what can only be described as Krakatoa-style rage, I turn the TV off, vowing never to tune into another professional golf broadcast until the next major (which happens to be Thursday's first round of the PGA, but after that not until April!). Fuming, I head out to run a few errands. Returning to the house around 3:30, I turned the TV on (my usual bodily function upon getting home), which was still on the same channel as before, and still showing golf. Now I'm not making up what I'm about to describe, this is what actually happened. As I prepared to change channels, and maintain my vow of avoiding non-major golf, it was announced it was time for the Prudential SHOT OF THE DAY! This golf coverage has been so riveting, it needed two shots of the day! I threw up a little. Whoever came up with having two of those should get a promotion. "Let's have two shots of the day. The coverage is so mundane, nobody could possible watch for six hours; nobody will ever know."

I understand that the four majors have much stronger TV audiences than any other tournament, so the need for additional sponsorship isn't as large. But perhaps these other tournaments would be a little easier to watch if they weren't so laden with commercials, little blurbs about nothing, and constant looks back at last year’s event.

Absolutely flabbergasted, I changed the channel, and fired up the PVR to sooth myself with some footage of this year's Masters Tournament. Ahhh.....green jackets and a sponsorless leaderboard. Hello friends...and welcome to another golf tournament you can actually watch without poking your eyes out.

/end rant.



- TheRev

twitter.com/TheRevBW

NBC - No Broadcast Complete?

Well it looks like summer has finally arrived in Calgary, so I thought I’d switch gears a little and talk some golf, particularly about this past weekend’s United States Open Championship. Graeme McDowell of Northern Ireland was able to take home the trophy, after making it around famed Pebble Beach at even par for four rounds. But I’m not here to talk about the tournament; I’m here to talk about NBC’s atrocious coverage of the tournament.

Am I talking about the commentary, including Johnny Miller’s out-dated and self-indulgent ramblings? No, although I could go on for hours on that one too, even longer than Miller can talk about his 1973 Open triumph. Am I talking about the schmaltzy attempt at tear jerking that is rampant in every golf broadcast? No, although I could talk endlessly about why Davis Love doesn’t win because of a nearby rainbow or why Tiger doesn’t win because he has a father or has lost a father; every player on tour is in the same boat. Nay, every person on earth is in the same boat. (It’s a big boat) But I digress; I am here to rant about NBC’s awful camera work on Sunday’s US Open telecast. This was without a doubt the worst sports broadcast I’ve ever seen.

Since I simply don’t have the time to go through the entire seven hour broadcast (although I’d like to), I’m only going to talk about the final few holes of play on Sunday. And to narrow it down even more, I’m only going to talk about the final three groups, playing those final holes. The problem I had as a viewer over this final stretch was all the ___ shots ___ missed while _____ ____ ___. That was the experience watching golf yesterday afternoon. Fill in the blanks, a fun game to play with the kids!

Okay, we’ll start with the Mickelson-Els pairing hitting their tee shots on 14. Actually, maybe that’s not the best place to start, as we didn’t see Mickelson’s drive on 14, nor his second shot, nor Els’ second shot, and they cut away to show something else before Mickelson’s third shot stopped rolling. In fact, it ended up rolling back forty yards before it stopped, but I had to deduce that as I never actually saw it finish.

At this point in the tournament, Mickelson, Els, Woods, Havret, and eventually winner Graeme McDowell, were the only players in contention, and hence the only players being shown. I can understand that, who wants to watch Dustin Johnson limp home to a final round 82? But if you have only five players to show, you’d think you’d be able to show all their shots! Through the final five holes, those five players took a combined 111 strokes in about 150 minutes, and NBC missed almost 25% of them. Unacceptable.

When they joined the Woods-Havret twosome on the fifteenth hole, we were left to figure out for ourselves how Tiger’s ball ended up in the rough beside the green, not having seen either his drive nor his approach shot on that hole. Fortunately, after his chip, Dottie Pepper was able to tell us that after hitting his tee shot into the rough, Woods hit his approach a little heavy, and found himself short of the green, in the rough, chipping for birdie. Well, I’m glad I didn’t have to see all that! It was much better hearing about it. Ironically, while Dottie was telling us about what we missed on 15, the viewers missed two more shots on 16, forcing Brad Faxon to tell us about Mickelson and Els’ shots there. If only there were a medium featuring only sound, and no picture; golf coverage would be almost perfect.

I could continue ad nauseam about other missed shots, but rather than waste your time, I’ll merely use one of NBC’s favourite lines from yesterday’s broadcast, “while we were gone, [insert player name here] made/missed his putt for birdie/par/bogey and tapped in for par/bogey/double bogey.”

Now let’s talk about the few shots they did show. Hmmm…there was Tiger’s putt on thirteen, which used such an odd angle, from below the putting surface, that you couldn’t see the hole, only the ball. When Tiger did putt, we watched it roll along and then wondered why all the commentators were gasping. On a reply we saw the ball burn the edge of the cup, and figured out their gasps were because of how close it was. I’m not sure why we couldn’t have seen that the first time around. Or how about Mickelson’s tee shot on 17, which we joined mid-backswing. You could hear the commentator rushing his words, “…Mickelsonon17withasixiron,” trying to squeeze it into the half second it takes for Mickelson to hit the ball. The same thing happened on Mickelson’s chip shot on 17, (an amazing shot from the deep rough near the grandstand that was merely glossed over by NBC), his bunker shot on 18, Els’ fourth shot on 14, and a Havret birdie putt.

The best instance of joining a shot at the last second however, was Mickelson’s approach on the fifteenth hole. While Mickelson addressed the ball, we were shown a head-on camera angle, but as he brought the club back they switched cameras, revealing Mickelson’s ball lying on a bed of TV cables! We see this for about half of one second before the ball goes sailing into the air. The ball finds its way into the rough near the green, but before it stops moving the cameras cut away to Johnny Miller and Dan Hicks joking about still being on the air after having their cables chopped at. Not only did they not set the shot up at all, they never offered any explanation as to why he hit it either. I don’t think I’ve ever seen somebody hit a shot off of TV cables in the US Open, in the final round, while in contention, but I guess NBC didn’t feel it was worth talking about. Imagine if that shot ended up finding the green, only a couple of feet from the pin. It would be one of the more dramatic shots in US Open history, but relegated to a mere footnote in NBC’s coverage.

Perhaps this is why hockey’s TV ratings are lagging in the United States. Is NBC doing the same thing for hockey games? “While we were gone, Ovechkin and Crosby each scored their third goal of the game and began arguing over whose hat trick was nicer. They then dropped the gloves in probably the most exciting hockey fight in the history of the game.” This of course would be told as the camera showed a young fan sleeping in his seat. Why watch it live when you can be told about it later? Of course it wasn’t all bad this weekend and the optimist in me always finds a silver lining in every storm cloud. The good news is, there isn’t another golf tournament on NBC until September 5th at the Deutsche Bank Championship. Enjoy.


-TheRev